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SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 



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HELD ON THE 



LORD'S DAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1859. 



THE FESTIVAL ON THE DAY FOLLOWING. 




BOSTON : 

PUBLISHED BY HENRY HOYT, 

NO. 9 CORNHILL. 

1861. 



^4^ 



iD BY GEO. C. BAND & A.VEKY, 

No. 3 Cornhill, Boston. 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL COMMITTEE. 



ON THE PART OF THE CHURCH. 



REV. A. L. STONE, 
NATHANIEL WILLIS, 
EDWIN LAMSON, 
TIMOTHY FARRAR, 
SAMUEL NEAL, 
EZRA FARNSWORTH, 
W. T. EUSTIS, 



JOSIAH BUMSTEAD, 
LEMUEL SHATTUCK, 
PETER HOBART, JR. 
HENRY HOYT, 
LUTHER DANA, 
T. W. NICKERSON. 



ON THE PART OF THE SOCIETY. 



E. W. PIKE, 
TISDALE DRAKE, 
E. A. BIRCHARD, 



WILLIAM T. GLIDDEN, 
B. F. CAMPBELL. 



.cktffittriflrg. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



^HE Park Street Church was organized at 
the house of William Thurston, on " Beacon 
Hill," on the twenty-seventh day of Feb- 
ruary, A. D. 1809. Early in the winter of 
1858, the church voted unanimously to hold, on the 
approaching fiftieth anniversary of its founding, its 
semi-centennial celebration. A large committee was 
at once appointed to make preparation for the suit- 
able observance of the Jubilee, by whom circulars 
were sent out, through the mail and the press, to all 
surviving members of the church, past and present, 
inviting them to participate in the celebration. The 
hospitalities of the families of the Park Street people, 
resident in Boston, were tendered to all members 
of the church, from abroad, who should attend the 
services. 

The Park Street Society was invited to unite with 
the church in the commemoration, and most cordially 
responded, appointing on their behalf, to act in con- 



10 INTRODUCTORY. 

currence with the committee of the church, a com- 
mittee of their own, who rendered most valuable 
and efficient aid in devising and carrying out the 
arrangements for the occasion. 

The anniversary falling upon the Sabbath, it was 
resolved that the three ex-pastors of the church still 
living be invited to deliver discourses through the 
day and the evening, — the Lord's Supper to be cele- 
brated in connection with the sermon in the after- 
noon ; — and that a Festival, with a collation, be held 
in some public hall, on the succeeding day, for social 
reunion and the exchange of such greetings and 
salutations as the occasion might inspire. 

The pastors of sister churches in the city of 
Boston, and other distinguished gentlemen between 
whom and the church there had existed any special 
bonds of alliance, were invited to be present through 
such parts of the celebration as their engagements 
would permit them to honor. Aged members of the 
church, and those most familiar with its early history, 
were solicited to furnish their reminiscences of the 
past ; and those who had been connected with the 
choir in former years were invited to be present 
and lend their voices in " the service of song." 

It was also resolved that a sketch of the proceed- 
ings should be preserved in a Memorial Volume, for 
the use of the present members of the church, and 
of those who should come after them. 



INTRODUCTORY. 11 

The Rev. Silas Aiken, d.d., of Rutland, Vt., the 
Rev. Joel Linsley, d.d., of Greenwich, Conn., and 
the Rev. Edward Beecher, d.d., of Galesburg, 111., 
the three survivors of all who had previously filled 
the pastoral office in the church, cheerfully con- 
sented to perform the parts assigned to them in the 
commemorative services ; and on the Lord's day, 
February 27, a.d. 1859, pronounced the following- 
Discourses in the Park Street Meeting-house, which 
was crowded to its utmost capacity with a deeply 
interested audience. 



♦ -M. 11 +- 



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MORNING DISCOURSE. 



BY REV. SILAS AIKEN, D.D. 

PASTOR FROM MARCH 22, 1837, TO JULY 12, 1848. 

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

" The Church of the living God, the Pillar and Ground of the 

Truth." — 1 Timothy iii. 15. 
>^ 

jffvv HE Scriptures attach great meaning to the church, 
^^ — Grod's ecdesia, as the word itself denotes, — 
the called of Grod out from the world. The church 
holds a high place in Grod's moral administration. 
That institution which by man's wisdom and philosophy 
has been little accounted of, if not scorned and despised, 
is none other than Grod's chosen instrument for carrying 
into effect his purpose of redemption. The church, com- 
prehending, of course, the ministry, — for ministry and 
church are, in the main design, one, — the church is of 
Grod's ordination. He laid the foundation, and planned 
the superstructure, appointed its sphere of agency, pledged 
his omnipotence for its security ; and while the heavens 
declare his glory, and the firmament shows his handiwork. 



1 6 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

he designs to make known unto principalities and powers 
his manifold wisdom, by the church. Thus will he humble 
the pride of man. By an association, not of the wise and 
mighty and noble after the flesh, but mainly of the poor 
and base and despised of the world, he will show that the 
foolishness of Grod is wiser than men, and that the weakness 
of Grod is stronger than men, that no flesh may glory in 
his presence. 

In name and form of organization, patriarchal, Jewish, or 
Christian, there is nothing essential. The form has been 
wisely adapted to the varying exigencies of the world, to 
the light enjoyed at different epochs, and to the specific 
work to be done at particular times. In its essential 
character, the church, however variously styled, is one and 
the same in all ages. It may be designated as " the king-' 
dom of heaven," in distinction from the kingdoms of this 
world; or as " the house of Grod," built up of lively stones, 
embodying his spiritual children, the home of their social 
affection and blessedness; or as "the temple of the Holy 
Grhost," the seat of his regenerating and sanctifying influ- 
ence ; or as " the body of Christ," indicating the vital 
union of believers with their Lord, — he the head and they 
the members of the same body, one in spirit, in labor, in 
suffering, and in joint heirship to the eternal inheritance ; 
or, again, as " the pillar and ground of the truth," denoting 
the high trust committed, of upholding the word and wor- 
ship of God. But these are but different names of the one 
church of the living Grod, — the chosen generation, the holy 
nation, the peculiar people, who are to show forth the praises 



MORNING DISCOURSE. IT 

of Him who has called them out of darkness into his marvel- 
ous light. 

That the youthful Timothy, now left in charge of the 
church of Ephesus, might feel the importance of his work, 
Paul, with the solicitude and affection of a father, addressed 
to him this epistle, filled with wise counsel in regard to the 
right performance of his ministry : These things I write, 
hoping to come unto thee shortly : But if I tarry long, that 
thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in 
the house of G-od, which is the church of the living God, 
the pillar and ground of the truth. Whatever shade of 
meaning is to be attached to the figures here employed, 
the main idea is obvious. The terms "pillar and ground of 
the truth, explain and strengthen each other. God has 
appointed the church to be the foundation and support of 
revealed truth. 

In illustrating this sentiment, I propose to inquire, what 
we are here to understand by " the church," and what is 
the office or mission of the church as " the pillar and ground 
of the truth." 

I. What is here to be understood by " The 
Church ? " 

The word church, in its religious sense, is employed in 
the Scriptures with some variety of meaning. It is most 
frequently used in the New Testament to designate a com- 
munity of Christians, who meet for religious worship and 
edification in a specified locality; denoting a single congrega- 
tion or society of believers, — as the church of Ephesus, of 



18 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

Corinth, of Colosse, of Sardis, and of the Thessalonians. It 
is thus applied to the company of disciples dwelling and 
worshiping together in the same city. 

The word is used to designate the faithful in particular 
households, — as the church in the house of Nyniphas, and 
that in the house of Aquila and Priscilla, — though it is 
probable that these household churches embraced believers 
in the vicinity, who were accustomed to assemble with them 
for spiritual fellowship. In this sense, the church denotes 
any body of professed believers voluntarily associated for 
the worship of Glod and the observance of divine ordinances. 
The term is not employed to designate a sect, or the aggre- 
gate of Christian societies in a province or kingdom, as 
is done in our day. We read not of the church of G-alatia, 
or that of Achaia, or Macedonia, but of the churches, each 
congregation of Christians constituting a separate church. 

The term is also applied to the whole company of visible 
believers, — the universal church militant, — including all 
true churches of Christ throughout the world. In this 
sense, Christ is declared to be head over all things to the 
church ', and against this church the gates of hell shall not 
prevail. The church universal, embracing all who receive 
and profess the faith and walk by the rules of the gospel, is 
Grod's organization for maintaining his word and worship 
in the world. In this sense, the word is evidently employed 
in the text ; and its broader signification here, differs from 
its more restricted import only as the whole differs from 
a part. The main design of the church universal is also 
that of the particular or local church. Xor can imperfection 



MORNING DISCOURSE. 19 

or niisjudgment in the outward form destroy the nature of 
the organization, or make God's purpose therein of no effect. 
The visible church is God's institution, though gathered 
according to man's fallible judgment. Tares may grow with 
the wheat. Yea, in particular cases, the door of the church 
may be left unguarded, and the unconverted find admission. 
Sound doctrine may be exchanged for heresy, and the leaven 
of wickedness may so taint the whole body that the house 
of God at length becomes a synagogue of Satan. Of this 
there are not wanting melancholy instances. But none the 
less is it God's will that his people organize into churches, 
for the upholding of his truth and worship. Organization is 
necessary for the edifying of the saints, and for efficient 
co-operation in saving the souls of men. The precise form 
or polity thereof, the Lord, as I apprehend, has not pre- 
scribed ; and let us beware of contending about shadows. 
Form is something, but it is not the main thing ; and that 
form is best which is most conducive to spiritual worship. 
It is in regenerate souls, and in the indwelling spirit of 
Christ, that the life and glory of the church consist. Where 
these are, be the form or name what it may, there is a true 
branch of God's church, the pillar and ground of the truth. 
And while the institutions of man shall wax old and vanish 
away, this church of God, built upon the foundation of the 
apostles and prophets, shall live, an everlasting kingdom, 
and throughout all ages be a standing proof of the divine 
power and faithfulness. 



20 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

II. What is the Office or Mission of the Church 
as " The Pillar and Ground of the Truth V 

This is our second inquiry. Here mark the intimate 
relation of the church to truth, — not scientific or philo- 
sophic truth, but to that revealed word of God, which 
enlightens, sanctifies, and saves the soul. The regenerate 
church is in living sympathy with the mind of God. It is 
a characteristic of the ecclesia, the called of God, that they 
receive, hold fast, and practically exhibit, the divine word. 
I observe, therefore, 

1. That the church is the appointed guardian of the 
truth. 

Paul declared it a signal advantage conferred on the Jews. 
that unto them were committed the oracles of God. And 
if the possession of a few inspired writings was a matter 
of such moment to the Jewish church, the possession of the 
entire volume of revelation must be a more sacred trust 
committed to the Christian. The preservation of the divine 
word in its purity is a vital matter. To whose keeping could 
it be safely intrusted ? Would fallen angels prove reliable 
guardians of the truth ? Would unconverted men be such 
an agency as divine wisdom would select for the purpose ? 
Who but the regenerate church, the living witnesses to the 
power of the gospel, are fitted to discharge the trust ? And 
since the divine word is the appointed means of salvation, 
and upon the knowledge and belief of that word depends 
the everlasting destiny of unborn generations, when, since 
the Lord's hand spread out these heavens, has he placed in 
man's keeping a more sacred deposit ? God's revelation 



MORNING DISCOURSE. 21 

of his own character and law and purposes ; of man's ruin 
by sin, and redemption by the blood of Christ ; of the 
renewing and sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit ) of the 
doctrine of life and immortality ; of the endless blessedness 
of the righteous, and the everlasting punishment of the 
wicked ; and of the only way of salvation ; — are these 
utterances of small concern ? 

Receiving the Bible as a divine revelation, we regard 
that book in a different light from all others. We make 
a fundamental distinction between the writers thereof and 
all other teachers. Here God speaks to mankind, and 
reveals the only authoritative rule of faith and duty. The 
Bible being the word of Grod, but one course remains ) we 
are to hearken to its declarations as strictly and solemnly 
true, and receive every doctrine and precept as from the 
mouth of Grod, and bow to its decisions as the end of all 
debate. We are not here listening to the opinions of men, 
speaking as man's wisdom teacheth, but to the infallible 
oracles of Grod. And though uttered by men, they are as 
truly from Grod as if declared in our ears by an audible voice 
from heaven. We hearken to these teachings as we hearken 
to no other words. The men who spake by the Holy Spirit's 
inspiration, were merely the organs employed by Grod for 
the revelation of his truth. The message comes from Grod, 
clothed with divine authority, unerringly true, and infinitely 
important. We are not at liberty to alter, to modify, to add 
or take away a jot or tittle, but are to receive the whole in 
the filial spirit of faith and obedience. 

Revelation is supernatural, and philosophy cannot explain 



22 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

it, as darkness cannot comprehend the light. Whatever 
God declares, is to be received in its proper import, whether 
it accords with onr opinions or contradicts them. " Let Grod 
be trne, but every man a liar," is here the true philosophy. 
And is it a small thing to be put in charge of such a trust ? 
To say nothing of truth as the essential means of edifying 
the church, is it a trifling matter to be the appointed guar- 
dian of the divine word, on the faithful keeping of which 
depends the fnlfilment of Gi-od's purpose of grace to a fallen 
world ? To the church is this trust committed ; and how 
well it has been discharged hitherto, you need not be told. 
Amidst revolutions and tumults, and persecutions unto 
death; upon the earth, distress of nations with perplexity, 
the sea and the waves roaring, and men's hearts failing them 
for fear ; through dreary centuries of darkness, superstition, 
and apostasy, Glod's hidden ones have held fast the revealed 
word ; and it is with adoring wonder and praise that we con- 
template the fact, that to ourselves have been transmitted 
in their fulness and purity the identical oracles of Grod 
which were uttered by men of old, who spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Grhost. 

But guardianship is not all, for — 

2. Upon the church it devolves to defend and vindicate the 
truth against the aspersions of enmity and unbelief. 

God calls his people to contend earnestly for the faith once 
delivered to the saints. No trait of unregenerate man is 
more marked and universal than the dislike of evangelical 
truth, and a desire to change it into a lie. Man naturally 
hates the lmht that condemns him, and hence his turns and 



MORNING DISCOURSE. 23 

shifts to get free from its annoyance. To the Jew the 
doctrine of the cross is a stumbling-block, to the Greek, 
foolishness ; and while the former would overlay the doctrine 
with his traditions, the latter would substitute for it his 
philosophy. No other book was ever so rancorously assailed 
as the Bible. There have not been wanting those who 
pronounce it all a fable. Infidel philosophy, like an unclean 
spirit, has gathered its disciples to the battle, and in their 
endeavors to destroy the credit of Grod's revelation, no 
weapon of ribald jest or blasphemy has been left unem- 
ployed. Such were they, described by Jude : Filthy 
dreamers, speaking evil of things which they know not, — 
clouds without water, raging waves of the sea, foaming out 
their own shame ; complainers, walking after their own lusts, 
their mouth speaking great swelling words, — sensual, hav- 
ing not the Spirit. 

From assaults of this kind, however, the Bible has little 
to fear. A much more dangerous foe is that which, under 
the name of Christianity, seeks to undermine its foundation ; 
at one time by discarding the idea of plenary inspiration, 
and again, by explaining away distinctive doctrines, and 
divesting the gospel of all that is vital and authoritative as 
a revelation from Glod, thus opening wide the floodgates of 
rationalism and infidelity. Reason is exalted above revela- 
tion, and presumes to decide what alone the Most High can 
consistently say. The holiness of Grod, and his anger against 
sin • the depravity and ruin of man, and his just desert 
of damnation ; Grod manifest in the flesh, as an atoning 
Redeemer • regeneration, by the Holy Spirit ; the essential 



24 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

distinction between saints and sinners; salvation by grace 
through faith alone, and that the gift of God ; — these, it is 
claimed, are antiquated notions, unsupported by the Scrip- 
tures rightly interpreted, abhorrent to reason, and false. 
The plain facts of revelation must bend to such interpreta- 
tions as the wisdom of man can accept, and the cross of 
Christ is made of none effect. Strange indeed, that after 
the experience of almost sixty centuries, testifying that 
human reason and philosophy are blind, and that the world 
by wisdom knows not God, reason should now pretend to 
supernatural discernment, arraign the doctrines of Christ 
at her bar, and reject everything peculiar in them as 
unworthy of God. But so it is. Man's wisdom exalts 
itself against the truth of God, and scorns the Christ of 
revelation. Human pride and self-sufficiency ignore the 
plain testimony of the Bible, and mark out a broad and easy 
way for the prayerless and unholy into the kingdom of 
heaven. 

Moreover, under the pretended sanction of revelation, 
come various covert assaults from new discoveries and 
improvements in religion, generally old heresies revived 
under new names and combinations, perverting the truth 
with pious glosses, or claiming to know the mysteries of God 
by methods which entirely supersede the written word, or 
substituting philanthropy for regeneration, and gain for 
godliness, denying the Holy Ghost, and by nameless inven- 
tions beguiling unstable souls to their ruin. These are the 
fan in the Master's hand, for the purging of his floor, that 
they who are approved may be manifest. Indeed, what 



MORNING DISCOURSE. 25 

scheme of folly can be in such glaring opposition to both 
the letter and spirit of the Bible as to fail of adherents 
among those who love not the truth ? Nor in this does any- 
strange thing happen. So it was in the apostolic age. One 
declared the resurrection already past. Another pronounced 
the resurrection of the dead an absurdity, saying, With 
what bodies do they come ? And many denied the Lord 
that bought them, and turned the grace of God into 
lasciviousness. 

Now by whom are these open and covert assaults upon 
the word of God to be repelled ? Will the unregenerate, 
whose hearts and lives are in antagonism to the truth, and 
whose souls are yearning for deliverance from its stern 
demands, enlist in such a work ? Did the thought ever 
enter a sane mind, that the maintenance of law and order 
may be safely left to those whose desires and interests are 
on the side of transgression ? Was it ever known that a 
prisoner at the bar wittingly brought forward evidence that 
convicted him ? Or must the work of vindicating the word 
and ways of God be assigned to those who have felt the 
power and preciousness of the gospel, and to whose souls 
the truth has proved spirit and life ? To the blood-bought 
and regenerate church, God has committed this trust. It is 
the friends of God who must rally round his standard, and 
hold fast the form of doctrine delivered to them. They are 
his witnesses in an unbelieving world j and, by pureness, by 
knowledge, by the Holy Ghost, by godly sincerity, by un- 
yielding faith, by exhibiting the transforming power of the 
gospel upon their own hearts, and by an outspoken testi- 



26 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

mony, tliey are everywhere and at all times to hold forth the 
word of life, commending the truth to every man's con- 
science in the sight of God. 

Hence, in addition to guardianship and defence, a third 
point involved in the church's mission is — 

8. The propagation of the truth. 

This is a work of transcendent grandeur. It is the bring- 
ing of this revolted world into subjection to Jesus Christ. 
The truth may be essential to the growth of holiness in 
believers, and their preparation for heaven. Within the 
church, the efficacy of truth is to be manifested in mutual 
fellowship, watchfulness, and aid. Its ministrations were 
appointed for the edifying of the body of Christ. This 
feature of God's design is not to be overlooked. But the 
gospel was committed to the church in trust for a perishing- 
world. " Go teach all nations," is her Lord's injunction. 
" Freely ye have received, freely give." And is there not 
something beautiful and fitting in God's plan of making 
pardoned sinners the means of extending salvation to others ? 
No sooner is one born of the Spirit, than the word of God is 
in his heart, as a burning fire shut up in his bones, and he 
is weary with forbearing and he cannot stay. His soul 
burns to make others partakers of his joy. God has 
ordained the blood-bought church to be the propagator of 
his word ; and in this his people are coworkers with him 
in accomplishing his purpose of grace. Would you know 
the importance of this work ? See it in the mission and 
sacrifice of the Son of God. He who alone bears the name 
of God our Saviour, judged the salvation of man to be an 



MORNING DISCOURSE. 27 

adequate reward for the humiliation of the manger, the 
strong crying and tears of a suffering life, and the ignominy 
of a malefactor's death. For the joy that was set before 
him, Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame. The 
greatness of the object gave dignity to his condescension, 
honor to his poverty, splendor to his obscurity, beauty to his 
life, and glory to his death. To Christ, the salvation of the 
lost was all in all, from the manger to the cross. His heart 
and life were full of it. His doctrine, and miracles, and 
prayers, and tears, all had relation to it. Of such moment 
was redemption in his view, that he gave his life a ransom. 
Was that a false estimate ? Was the union of divinity with 
humanity for the sufferings of death a thing uncalled for ? 
Did the Son of Grod overestimate the value of the human 
soul ? How sacred the trust committed by Christ to his 
church. " Ye are the light of the world." " Ye are the 
salt of the earth." " To you, my disciples, have I given 
the revealed word, the ministry, the institutions and ordi- 
nances of the gospel, and the Holy Spirit of promise. Glo 
make my gospel known to every creature." The enemies 
of Christ will not do this work. Grod will not send angels 
to do it. He has expressly assigned it to his regenerate 
people, the church. To them is it given to set forth and 
hold up the word of life. By a holy example, by personal 
activity and zeal for Grod, by self-denial and sacrifices, by 
importunate prayer, by the armor of righteousness on the 
right hand and on the left, they are called of Glod to diffuse 
far and wide the knowledge of salvation. Theirs is an honor 
which angels well might covet ; to be Christ's messengers 
of mercy to the guilty, to show the way of life to the per- 



28 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

ishing, to wipe away the mourner's tears, to hold up the 
lamp of life in the regions of darkness, and press forward in 
the work of the Lord, until the earth is emancipated from 
the thraldom of sin and Satan, and brought into the liberty 
of the sons of Grod. Feeble as may be the instrument, it is 
of Grod's appointment • and its feebleness will the better 
illustrate the riches of his grace. This work will reach a 
glorious consummation. While Paul plants, and Apollos 
waters, and the people of Grod bring their peace-offerings of 
thanksgiving, consecrating themselves, their substance, their 
sons and daughters to the Lord, lifting up holy hands with- 
out wrath and doubting, God will not fail to give the 
increase. From the church shall again be sounded out the 
word of the Lord, and in every place their faith to Grod- 
ward shall be spread abroad. 

We may despise our birthright, and fail in duty. The 
local church may fail ; but help shall arise from another 
quarter. This world shall be evangelized. The mouth of 
the Lord hath spoken it. And when by the faith, the zeal, 
the united labors and prayers of the church, holding up and 
setting forth the truth, idolatry has been abolished, the man 
of sin dethroned, infidelity and falsehood put to shame, and 
every kindred and people under heaven are doing homage 
at the cross of Christ, — then will it be seen and known of 
all men, that the church is " the pillar and ground of the 
truth." 

From the foregoing view we learn in what consists the 
true prosperity of the church, whether of the church uni- 
versal or the local church, — for both exist for the same end. 



MORNING DISCOURSE. 20 

It is in fulfilling Grod's design, in preserving, defending, and 
diffusing his truth. Here alone is found the standard of 
the church's life. There is great misjudgment on this point. 
Tests appropriate to worldly enterprises are often applied to 
the church, and lead to fatal mistakes. The secular busi- 
ness, or moneyed corporation, which secures patronage, and 
where capital brings in large gain, is pronounced a success. 
But the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, and its 
prosperity is to be measured by no such rule. 

The true life and strength of the church do not consist in 
numbers. The one hundred and twenty disciples who met 
daily in the upper room at Jerusalem, after Christ's ascen- 
sion, were a thousand-fold more efficient for good than the 
millions who composed the Jewish church of that day. 
Provided the membership be of real Christians, full of faith 
and of the Holy G-host, numbers give strength, and are to be 
desired. But if, to secure numbers, the door of admission 
is thrown open, and unconverted persons, without discrimina- 
tion, are received, and by and by come to constitute a lead- 
ing element, then comes paralysis ; a heart leprosy infects 
the whole body, and what was ordained to be the exponent 
of truth, becomes a household of heresy and deceit. Without 
a living, pervading piety, great numbers bring great weak- 
ness. The true end of the church is not answered by 
wealth and learning and worldly influence in its members. 
These things, consecrated to the glory of Christ, become 
means of good. But riches and honors, with their usual 
concomitants, are rarely associated with active piety. Their 
tendency is to worldliness, to the pride of caste, to the pam- 



30 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

pering of those lusts which war against the soul. Coveted 
as they may be, they are dead weights to spiritual growth. 

Nor is the end of the church answered by union among 
its members, unless such union is based on truth and holi- 
ness. There may be union in error and sin. The tenants 
of the graveyard do not quarrel. Strifes and divisions are 
evils, nowhere more so than in the church ; but not the 
greatest evils. When Luther posted his theses on the 
church door of Wittemberg, he inaugurated division in the 
church that then was, and Grod be praised for it. Strife in 
the church may be nothing else than the struggle of truth 
against error. It may be the effort of life to throw off a 
superincumbent mass of death, and thus be a harbinger of 
good. 

Nor is the end of the church answered by outward forms, 
and costly houses for worship, and imposing decorations, or 
by captivating music, or by learned and eloquent preaching. 
All these, strictly subordinated to the purpose of truth and 
spiritual worship, are well enough ; but they enter not into 
the essence of the church's life. When did the faithful 
better fulfil their Lord's design, and achieve greater victories, 
than when, hunted as wild beasts, they met in dens and 
caves, and filled the night watches with songs of praise to 
Christ as to Grod ? Amid imposing forms and gorgeous 
rites, and all the appliances of art and taste, the Searcher 
of hearts may see nothing but empty show, and hear nothing 
but the sounding brass and the tinkling cymbal. No ; the 
true life and prosperity of any and every church is found 
in answering the end for which it was instituted ; in main- 



MORNING DISCOURSE. 31 

taining the doctrine of the cross for its own edification, and 
in setting forth and holding np the truth for the salvation 
of the world. Fidelity to God's design, is the essential 
condition of the church's preservation and success. God's 
promise of perpetuity is not to be restricted to the church 
universal. When has he abandoned to extinction the local 
church that was faithful to its mission as the pillar and 
ground of the truth ? When did the Good Shepherd desert 
the feeblest portion of his flock, who were holding fast his 
truth, and walking in his statutes, and fulfilling their true 
mission ? Who does not know that it is only when a local 
church has departed from the faith and practice of his 
word, and failed to answer its design, that God abandons it 
to spiritual blight and ultimate extinction ? 
But I must hasten to a conclusion. 

Beloved brethren and friends of this religious society, 
to you the present occasion, marking the fiftieth anniversary 
of the Park Street Church, is one of no ordinary interest. 
In that interest I claim to share. If the labors of more 
than eleven years in this pastorate ; if sharing your pros- 
perity and adversity, your joys and sorrows, during that 
time, has any meaning, then I have an interest in this day. 
Upon the religious history of the period which called for 
the formation of this church, I do not propose to dwell. It 
is sufficient to say that after a season of studied reserve and 
painful hesitation, there had been avowed a fundamental 
departure from the faith of the New England fathers. The 
ancient foundations were fast yielding ; all the Congrega- 



32 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

tional churches of Boston, save the Old South, were involved 
in the defection, and Unitarianism was making inroads 
throughout the surrounding country. 

In this state of things, a few individuals, after prayerful 
deliberation, felt moved to stand forth in the breach, and 
hold up the standard of evangelical doctrine, then reproached 
and ridiculed, and, by G-od's help, stay the flood of rational- 
ism which was desolating the Lord's heritage. 

The twenty-seventh of February, 1809, was a day fraught 
with great issues, when that little band of twenty-six breth- 
ren and sisters, in that private apartment, entered into 
covenant with Grod and each other, to reaflirm and uphold 
the doctrines of the cross, and thus rekindle the flame of 
experimental piety then ready to expire. To this end they 
at once set about the erection of this spacious temple, at 
great personal sacrifice, and dedicated it, in the following 
January, to the worship of the Triune Jehovah. And the 
history of fifty years, with their results in this community, 
shows that that consecration of hearts and of worldly sub- 
stance to the glory of Christ, was approved of heaven. 

Few of those who were first and foremost in this great 
work remain to see this day. There was a man who took the 
first pastoral charge of the infant church, at whose mouth 
the trumpet gave no uncertain sound j a man endowed with 
gifts and graces which eminently qualified him for the service 
then to be done. As a son of thunder, and in strains sweet 
as angels use, he vindicated and commended the doctrines 
of the cross. The opinion has been expressed, and I know 
of no reason for questioning its correctness, that amid great 



MORNING DISCOURSE. 33 

services, in many important spheres of labor, Dr. Griffin 
here did the great work of his life. Under trials which 
few at this day can appreciate, he here wrought mightily for 
God and truth. And it is said that not a few who came 
into this house to scoff, remained to pray. The sword of 
the Spirit in his hand was without a scabbard. His brief 
labors of less than four years produced a marked effect. 
The tide began to turn, and many were beginning to ask 
for the good old way. 

And there was his successor, an able and good minister 
of Jesus Christ, a workman that needed not to be ashamed. 
Frank, generous, discriminating, lucid in the exhibition of 
truth, and pungent in the application of it, his ministry of 
eight and a half years was fraught with rich blessings to the 
church and society. Griffin and Dwight, who watched 
over and guided the infancy of this church are not here 
to-day. They have rested from their labors. To not a few 
in this community, now pillars in this sisterhood of churches, 
these names are still fresh and fragrant. Others who have 
shared in the labors of this pastorate are here with us, and 
will speak for themselves. 

Then, as to the original members and those who early 
joined them and shared their burdens and trials, many have 
fallen asleep. With not a few of them I have taken sweet 
counsel. I felt the warmth of their loving hearts. I wit- 
nessed their labors of faith and love. Dark and sorrowful 
were the days when devout men carried them to their 
burial. Homes, and Homer, and Odiorne, and Hub- 
bard, and others no less justly held in honor, are not here 



d4 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

to-day. And were Paul present, lie would not forget to 
name, as his manner was, the pious women, who labored 
much in the Lord, — the Phoebes, the Lydias, and Marys, 
who were fellow-helpers to the truth. 

And, of the early membership, there are also living ones, 
still witnessing a good confession, of whom I may not speak. 
Spared to see this anniversary, with what emotions do they 
recall the scenes of bygone years ! Let the memory of the 
founders, and their early associates, living and dead, who, in 
that day of rebuke, here raised a standard for Christ, and 
stood by it in peril and reproach, be fondly cherished by 
those who have entered into their labors, 

May this church, expressly established to uphold evan- 
gelical faith and practice, and diffuse the knowledge of 
salvation at home and abroad, remain firm on the foundation 
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief 
corner-stone. May it fulfil its high trust, and stand forth in 
all future generations, " the pillar and ground of the truth." 

This fraternal gathering of those who are, and of those 
who have been, members of the Park Street Church, with 
the surviving ex-pastors, to unite in a tribute of acknowl- 
edgment and praise to God on this occasion, how well is it 
fitted to admonish us of that greater gathering, when all the 
redeemed, from every nation and kindred and tongue, shall 
come together on Mount Zion above, with songs and ever- 
lasting joy upon their heads. The Lord grant that we all 
may find mercy of the Lord in that day. 



Jtamitt Jliarnttm. 



AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 

PREPARATORY TO THE SACRAMENT OF THE SUPPER. 



BY REV. JOEL H. LESTSLEY, D.D. 

PASTOR FROM DECEMBER 5, 1832, TO SEPTEMBER 28, 1835. 



CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS ENFORCED BY 
REDEEMING LOYE. 

^^%0 transient, in the mysterious orderings of Provi- 
dence, was my connection with you as your pastor, 
that I had but slight claims to a part in these 
commemorative exercises. And yet I could not, 
under the kind invitation extended to me, deny myself the 
pleasure of meeting and greeting this beloved church, on 
an occasion like the present, — a church dear to many, even 
strangers in far-off lands, by reason of its well-known origin, 
character, and history, its love for the truth, its hospitality 
to the saints, its connection with missionary movements, 
and its. liberal patronage of every good cause ; — how much 
more dear to me, who, in years gone by, alike in health 
and loss of health, shared so largely in its sympathy, for- 

3* 



38 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

bearance, and generous kindness. The speaker will ever 
recur to his pastorate here, — brief and imperfect, yet not 
altogether fruitless, — as to a bright spot in a life which, 
like many others in this world of change, has had its dark 
shadows, as well as its cheering sunlight. 

But I must not forget that the nature of the service 
assigned me forbids anything beyond the most limited indul- 
gence of personal feelings. While, therefore, there are 
numbers of the membership of this church, now gone home 
to glory, whose memory will ever be fragrant here, and 
whose virtues I would gladly help to embalm, yet I bear in 
mind that I should chiefly move you to honor that Saviour 
whom they so ardently loved, considering that the grace 
which shone in them was his gift, and that humility was 
their brightest ornament. 

You will find my text in 2 Cor. v. 13-15. 

'•For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we 
be sober, it is for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth us; 
because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead. 
And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live 
unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again." 

Paul's preaching at Corinth, as he testifies, was with 
" much fear and trembling," and therefore, perhaps, with 
all the more prayer, and certainly with great success. He 
gathered among that gay, pleasure-loving, and corrupt 
people, a strong church. It was a church very dear to 
him j but it was one also which occasioned him much 
anxiety and sorrow of heart. There arose in it false teach- 



AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 39 

ers, who strove to depreciate his character and weaken his 
influence. Among other things they accused him of self- 
glorying, and also with being carried away with an over- 
wrought zeal. In the chapter before us, we have a virtual 
reply to these charges. It develops the feelings which 
animated and the principles which controled the apostle's 
ministry. He acted in view of things unseen and eternal, 
and by that standard he must be judged. His apprehen- 
sion of the terrors and glories of the eternal world, made 
him careless of the reproaches of men, and anxious chiefly 
to please him to whose judgment bar he saw himself 
hastening. Having felt in his own soul the " terrors of the 
Lord," he labored in view and by means of them " to per- 
suade men." Acting under the responsibilities of such a 
ministry, so related both to time and eternity, to the glory 
of G-od and the well-being of immortal souls, he and his 
associates might indeed seem beside themselves; but whether 
they were so judged by some, or whether, by others, they 
were accounted sober and right-minded, it was their love for 
Christ that furnished the key to their conduct. " Because 
we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead. 
And that he died for all, that they who live should not 
henceforth live unto themselves." Observe here — 

That Paul assumes as a well-known truth, that Christ 
died for all. From this he infers another, even more vital, 
in the gospel system, to wit, that all were dead, that the 
race were hopelessly lost under the power of sin. And 
since these things were so, he draws the conclusion that 
those who live, those who through the sacrifice of Christ 



40 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

and the power of his Spirit are raised from the death of sin 
to the life of holiness, should not live as before, unto them- 
selves, but unto him who died for them and rose again. 

Now, I do not propose an elaborate discussion of any one 
of these great truths. The occasion forbids this. As to 
their proofs the text is so explicit that I see not how any- 
thing can be added to its clearness and force. And, more- 
over, though fundamental truths must every where be dis- 
cussed and established in men's convictions, yet I should 
hope that he/'e, if any where in the world, a labored argu- 
ment for essential Christian doctrine might be dispensed 
with. For I run my eye back along the line of successive 
generations, for at least fifty years, and what do I see ? 
A little company of believers, perhaps some twenty or 
twenty-five, banding together under a solemn covenant to 
sustain and diffuse the very doctrines alluded to. Few in 
numbers, and feeble in resources, they are strong only in 
the belief of the truth, and in the purpose to maintain it ; 
and above all, in their unwavering confidence in him who 
" died for them, and rose again. " Few and feeble as they 
are, and struggling with all the difficulties of a pioneer 
enterprise, yet they draw off from the mother church, and 
single-handed, on this beautiful elevation, on this consecrated 
hill of Zion, they plant their standard and unfurl their 
banner. And, blessed be God, from that hour to the pres- 
ent has the true gospel been proclaimed from successive 
pulpits to growing members. These pulpits, as they have 
from time to time been built, have been consecrated to 
Jehovah Jesus, the God of the Pilgrims, — the Father, the 



AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 41 

Son, the Holy Spirit, — and they have resounded with these 
great doctrines of a standing or of a falling Christianity, — 
the moral ruin of man, — the redeeming grace of God, our 
incarnate Saviour, — and that new birth, that new life of 
love, which is by his Word and Spirit and their affiliated 
truths. 

In the strength of these doctrines of grace, this church 
has moved steadily forward amid all changes through its 
successive ministries, until, by the divine blessing, it has 
gained its present strong position. This people, then, must 
forget their origin and their entire annals as a religious 
association, before they can repudiate fundamental truth, 
and become careless of its defence and its diffusion. 

But while I propose no formal attempt to establish the 
doctrines of the text, yet so far as they enter into Paul's 
argument for unselfish and holy zeal for Grod, they ought 
also to find a place in mine. 

" If one died for all/ 7 reasons the apostle, " then were 
all dead." If God so loved the world as to give his Son a 
sacrifice for its redemption, then, since in his benevolent 
plans there can be no waste of happiness, no uncalled-for 
suffering, therefore the world must have lain under the 
power and condemnation of spiritual death. All were dead 
and doomed. This is a first truth in the gospel scheme. 
But it is one concerning which mere speculation is pre- 
eminently fruitless. It is a truth to be felt. The conviction 
of it must penetrate the depths of your soul. It is to our 
purpose, therefore, to ponder the apostle's words, — " then 
were all dead." 



4: 2 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

What is it to be dead, in the sense of the text ? To live 
wholly to and for self, in opposition to living for Grod. It 
is, to use Paul's language, to " walk after the flesh, and to 
fulfil the desires of the flesh and the mind." In his epistle 
to the Romans, and also in that to the Ephesians, he recurs 
again and again to this truth, and does it, as in the passage 
before us, with a view at once to magnify the condescension 
and grace of Christ, and enforce the infinite obligations of 
his redeemed people. He would have every believer now, 
as hereafter in glory, turn from that height of privilege to 
which grace has exalted him, and look down into " the 
hole of the pit whence he was digged." He tells the 
Ephesian disciples that it demanded the same power of 
God to raise them from the death of sin, by which he 
wrought when he raised up Christ from the grave. "And 
you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 
wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of 
this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, 
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." 
Among whom, not you only, but I with you, — "we all 
walked in the lusts of the flesh, and were by nature children 
of wrath, even as others." Wherefore, — he would say, — 
forget not the wormwood and the gall of this your miserable 
state, when ye were " aliens from the commonwealth of 
Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no 
hope, and without Grod in the world." And again, in the 
same chapter, he adds : " But Grod, who is rich in mercy, 
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we 
were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ." 



AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 43 

Now, my brethren, it seems to me worthy of special notice, 
how this guilty condition of unregenerate man affected the 
apostle's mind, and how he prefaces every appeal to Chris- 
tians, as blood-bought souls, with a deeply shaded picture 
of that moral ruin in which they had shared. But why, 

Paul, art thou so much in earnest to live wholly for God 
thy Saviour ? Ah, he replies, how can I live otherwise ? 

1 cannot forget how dead I was in sin, how " mad upon 
my idols," and how low my blessed Lord had to go down 
into the pit to bring up and save my guilty soul. 

Would to God, oh sinful man, I could suitably impress 
thee with a sense of this overwhelming truth, that in thine 
unconverted state thou art under the power of death ; alive 
indeed to the world, but dead to Grod, dead to hope and to 
heaven. Thou hast all the attributes of a moral being, and 
of moral responsibility, but sold under sin ; the balance 
of thy soul is utterly lost, and with disordered action and 
fearful energy thou art rushing down to hell. Once, I did 
not fully understand why Paul, in addressing Christians, 
should insist so much upon the particular view of truth here 
adverted to. A clearer insight into the Christian life 
resolved the mystery. A deep experience of the power and 
condemnation of sin, — a thorough law work, as the old 
writers call it, — has much to do with a lively Christian 
hope, and with stability and consistency of Christian 
character ; and this deep work does not always precede 
conversion. 

Is there, then, any help for man, in his lapsed and low 
estate ? Yes, blessed be Grod, in heaven there is both pity 



44 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

and power. " Out of Zion there comes a Deliverer, to turn 
away ungodliness from Jacob." His name is Jesus, for 
" He shall save his people from their sins." He saves by 
giving his life a ransom for them, the just for the unjust. 
He dies for all, that they who live should not henceforth 
live unto themselves. Here, then, Paul's great argument 
for renouncing the world culminates. It was a view of 
Christ crucified for sinners, that first broke his heart, and 
that afterwards never ceased to melt and move it. My 
brother, are you sure that the same views ever broke your 
heart? Do you remember and ponder as you ought, the 
love of a suffering Saviour, either as a preparation for the 
Holy Communion, or as an incentive to holy labors ? Such 
meditations, particularly on the closing scenes of our Re- 
deemer's life, should live in the perpetual imagination of 
the believer's heart, for it is only as they do so that he can 
be a living Christian. 

Let us now glance at several considerations suited to 
magnify the love of Christ for us, and, of course, to add 
intensity to our love for Him j and — 

1. This love is munificent. It is so alike in the extent 
of its range and the richness of its provisions. Paul was 
deeply impressed by this feature, and stretches every energy 
of language to set it forth. He speaks of G-od as " rich in 
mercy," of his superabounding love, of the riches of his 
grace in Christ Jesus. Many think of the atonement as 
made only for this or that individual or class of individuals, 
— the elect subjects of its grace. But this is confounding 



AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 45 

the provision with its application. Certain passages, stand- 
ing by themselves, might bear the construction claimed j 
but the general current of the New Testament is manifestly 
in harmony with the plain language of the text. " God 
so loved the world " that he gave his only begotten Son. 
" He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, 
but also for the sins of the whole world." 

We rejoice in this view of atoning love. It invests it 
with sublimity, with godlike greatness. It makes redemp- 
tion to correspond with the grandeur of Jehovah's other 
works. The natural sun does not shine for this or that 
individual or community, but for the race. And so it is 
with the Sun of Righteousness. " I am the light of the 
world." Look at Grod's fullness of provision in the natural 
world, — air, light, the dews and rain of heaven. They are 
made for all, and free for all, though many abuse them, 
and the good, the elect only, make them in the highest 
sense personal blessings. Just so with the provisions of 
grace in Jesus Christ. They are not only made for the 
world, but are sincerely tendered to the world, — to every 
creature. Let the atoning love of Christ then stand before 
men and angels, in all its infinite sufficiency for dying men. 

" Deep as our helpless miseries are, 
And boundless as our sins." 

This view is practical. It enlarges and quickens our 
sympathies for a fallen world, — for men of every clime, 
and color, and • caste. Since Christ died for the race, we 
would live for the race. We can not rest till " one song 



46 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

employs all nations." To my own mind, the most affecting 
stanzas that Watts ever wrote for the communion table 
begins — 

" Pity the nations, our God ! " 

Again. 2. Christ's atoning love was not only large, but 
free and cheerful. This greatly magnifies a self-sacrificing 
affection. No constraint was laid upon the Eternal Word to 
undertake the work of our redemption. It was on his part 
a perfectly voluntary movement. " Lo, I come ; in the 
volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do 
thy will, myMjrod." We have Paul's authority for put- 
ting these words into the mouth of our divine Redeemer. 
And he himself says, — "I am the G-ood Shepherd. I lay 
down my life for the sheep. No man taketh it from me, 
but I lay it down of myself." And mark what follows, 
" Therefore my Father loveth me, because I lay down my 
life that I may take it again." It is certainly intimated 
here that the cheerfulness with which the second person in 
the Trinity entered on the enterprise of putting away sin 
by the sacrifice of himself, enhanced the value of that 
sacrifice in the eyes of the Father. Should it not, then, 
render it doubly precious to us, and, as a constraining influ- 
ence, doubly powerful? 

3. Christ's atoning love was not only abounding and 
free, but, — how shall I describe it ? — it was heroic, per- 
severing, triumphant love. " Many waters could not quench 
it." " Having loved his own, he loved them to the end." 
How can this feature of the Saviour's love be adequately 



AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 47 

displayed ? There is in the universe no parallel for it, — - 
nothing in human or angelic love with which it can be 
compared. You cannot imagine a case in which any crea- 
ture, even the loftiest, should give himself to suffer for the 
lowest, that would approach to a parallel. The sacrifice of 
a creature for a creature, though rare, we can understand. 
Magnify it as you may, it is still a finite transaction, and 
has soundings which a finite line can reach. But, oh, the 
love of Grod for sinful man ! — " such manner of love," as 
John speaks, — so large, so free, so persistent ! Some, 
possibly, may have carried love so far as to die for friends ; 
but " Grod commendeth his love toward us, in that while 
we were yet sinners," — enemies to his being, and rebels 
against his throne, — "Christ died for the ungodly." He 
knew well what glory and bliss he must leave behind, and 
how low he must stoop. He foresaw our pride, ingratitude, 
and base insensibility to the greatness of his sacrifice. As 
our surety, Christ knew that he must bear the wrath of Grod, 
the scorn of men, and the rage of devils. He must live 
in daily contact with sin. He must submit to taunt and 
mockery from the creatures he had made and even then 
upheld, to the buffetings, the cruel smitings of the soldiers, 
and the ignominy and anguish of the crucifixion. Mark 
the merciless monsters that gather around the innocent 
victim. See how they drive the ragged nails through those 
hands that had never been raised but to bless, and through 
those feet that had never moved but on errands of love. 
And then consider that over and above all that we can see 
and hear of the dreadful reality, there remains a mystery 



48 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

of suffering which we can not penetrate, a lower deep 
which we can not fathom. We see the Father avert his 
face, at the moment that agony thrills every nerve, and 
the life-blood ebbs away drop by drop through every pore. 
This is the last ingredient of bitterness that is thrown into 
the cup, and the meek sufferer cries out, ' : My Grod ! my 
God ! why hast thou forsaken me ! " And now, though 
man is mute, and heaven seems to withhold its sympathy, 
yet nature is moved. The sun is darkened, the rocks are 
rent, the graves give up their dead. 

" Oil. for this lore let rocks and hills 
Their lasting silence break ; 
And all harmonious human tongues 
The Saviour's praises speak." 

Christian, I counsel thee to retire often from the 
world, and go stand over against the cross, or with the 
loving Mary look into the sepulcher. See where the " Lord 
of glory loved and died," and hear him say as you look, 
'•Was there ever sorrow like unto my sorrow?" Let us 
behold and meditate, until, with all saints, we comprehend 
what is the height and depth, the length and breadth, of 
that love which passeth knowledge. 

I now add the fourth attribute of redeeming love, — its 
disinterestedness. 

The other attributes which I have named might possibly 
characterize a love that had in it some alloy of selfishness. 
And ah, my brethren, what drawbacks of this sort all human 
philanthropy is subject to, we too well know. Every sincere 



AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 49 

Christian has indeed some true love to God and his neigh- 
bor, — for nothing short of this constitutes him a Christian, 

— but how inconstant and unreliable ! In our good deeds 
what a mixture of motives often consciously appears, and 
in other cases, how self creeps in unconsciously. It was a 
striking remark of one of the most liberal givers that I 
have ever known, that it seemed to him there was scarcely 
an act of beneficence he had ever done in which he could 
not, on a searching review, discern some taint of selfishness. 
Doubtless this judgment was too severe; but this we may 
safely say, that whoever holds up his sacrifices for Christ 
to the light of Christ's great sacrifice for him, will be the 
most ready to fall down in the dust before God, and 
pray that atoning blood may purify his holiest duties, and 
" purge his conscience from dead works, to serve the living- 
God." But oh, the love of a redeeming Saviour ! that was 
wholly unselfish, — as pure as it was large and free. What 
was there in poor fallen man to engage the notice of God ? 
He could not, even if recovered from ruin, be profitable to 
him. God could, indeed, through Christ, and only through 
him, accept his imperfect services ; but not because he 
needed at his hand any thing. It is God's delight to give, 

— to bless out of his boundless store, — but how can infinite 
fullness need or receive from finite measures ? God saw man 
lying in all the ruin of his rebellion, and the compassion, 
the mere good will of his loving heart, moved the enterprise 
of his redemption. And the grace that drew the plan was 
conspicuous at every step in its execution. Look at the 
Saviour's life. What an impersonation of pure, self-sacrific- 

4* 



50 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

ing love ! Mark his own words. " The Son of Man came 
not to be ministered unto, but to minister." Truly, blessed 
Saviour, thou didst not, as many who call themselves by 
thy name, live to amass and enjoy, but to dispense and 
to bless. Thou didst empty thyself of heavenly glory and 
bliss, that thou mightest " fill us with all the fullness of 
God." Thou wast in our sin-ruined and suffering world, an 
angel of mercy, wearing out thy frail body, in which thou 
didst humble thyself to dwell, in labors of love, — instruct- 
ing the ignorant, reclaiming the wandering, composing the 
distracted, healing the sick, and raising the dead. 

Thus, my beloved brethren, I have placed before you a 
miniature representation of your Saviour and his sacrifice 
for sin, — that sacrifice, a view of which was with the great 
apostle an ever-living incentive to holiness, — always present 
to his mind to humble and quicken him, to mortify self and 
sin, and constrain him to consecrate his entire being to the 
glory of him who " died for him and rose again." And why 
should it be a feebler power in your soul or in mine ? We 
have before us the same great facts, — the eternal Word 
turning away from all the glory and blessedness he had 
" with the Father before the world was," the unselfishness 
of his sacrifice, its infinite fullness and freeness, its deep 
humiliations and sorrows, the greatness of that salvation 
which, by mysterious agonies, he brought out ; — and, while 
your heart melts, pass a step further, and consider that 
discriminating love which has made you, as you hope, a 
partner of this salvation, — which has "called you out of 



AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 51 

darkness into God's marvelous light/' — saying, "Awake, 
thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead." Oh yes, 
Christian, it was that Almighty Spirit that raiseth up and 
quickeneth whom he will, that raised you from the death of 
sin and the grave of your lusts to the life of God, — that 
made you a partaker of the divine nature, and gave you to 
" sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." And ever since, 
this love has followed you, — has kept your feet from falling, 
and your soul from death. You owe it to this same grace of 
Jesus Christ, that instead of standing aloof as a heartless 
looker-on, or sitting in the seat of the scornful, you are 
here to-day in the comfort of " a reasonable and holy hope " 
in Jesus ; that his " banner over you is lovej " and that 
you hear his gracious voice, saying, " Eat, friend ! drink, 
yea, drink abundantly, beloved ! " Can you in the review 
help breaking forth, " My Lord and my God," I acknowl- 
edge thy perfect and infinite claims to all that I have, 
and all that I am? 

" Were the whole i*ealm of nature mine, 
That were a present far too small; 
Love so amazing, so divine, 

Demands my soul, my life, my all." 

The Christian, then, being no more his own, can no more 
live or die to himself. This was Paul's doctrine, and this 
was alike his manner of living and of dying. Do you, my 
brother, order your life on such principles? Do you "keep 
your heart in the love " of him who died for you, and now 
lives and reigns for you? If the Saviour has occasion to 



52 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

say. ■• I remember the kindness of thy youth, the love of 
thine espousals/' when every faculty and possession was 
holiness to the Lord, does he find the same order of affection 
still ? Search and see. for that dying love can not brook 
a cold return, the very institution of the feast we celebrate 
to-day bears witness. " Do this in remembrance of me." 

In conclusion. I must add that while engaged in throwing 
together these thoughts. I have not been without much 
sorrow and heaviness of heart. I have compared Paul's 
Christian life with my own; I have extended this compar- 
ison to the ministry and to the church at large, and after 
every allowance of charity. I find cause for personal and 
general humiliation. It is meet that the great apostle of 
the Gentiles should talk of the constraint of a Saviour's 
love, for his life of toil and sacrifice for Christ and the 
gospel's sake vindicates his profession ; and the churches he 
planted imbibed his spirit. " To believe, to love, and to 
suffer/' — this, it has been said, was primitive Christianity. 
•■ The faith once delivered to the saints." says the ven- 
erated Lyman Beecher. •• produced a piety of great solem- 
nity and power. — a love for Christ so ardent, an avowal 
of his death so undaunted, and an enterprise so effective, 
that it moved on from conquering to conquer, through 
honor and dishonor, through fire and blood." 

But after all God's goodness, after all the light of prov- 
idence since enjoyed, and all the illuminations of the Spirit, 
where are we as Christian churches and Christian profess- 
ors? Can we truly say that we ••live not unto ourselves?" 



AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 53 

Paul plead his love for a dying Redeemer as a reason 
for a missionary zeal so ardent that it was accounted mad- 
ness. Was his love then in fact excessive, and his zeal 
insane ? If not, what shall we say of the present standard 
of effort and sacrifice for the same glorious cause? We 
have revivals and conversions, and I can not regard them 
as spurious. Our churches are made strong in numbers 
and resources; hut is the church, as at first, distinctively 
a united, holy, and truly missionary church, — moved by 
the constraint of dying love, and living for the salvation 
of the world ? It should be so. This is the spirit of the 
living Christian and of the true church. That most able 
and excellent man and minister of Christ, the late Pres. 
Olin, of the Methodist connection, says truly, in one of 
his eloquent appeals to his own denomination in behalf 
of missions, " Every Christian is born into the kingdom 
of Grod a missionary and a propagandist, — not only a lover 
of the truth, but a herald of truth." It is even so : like 
the converted woman of Samaria, he desires and seeks, 
and is ready to believe that he can accomplish the conver- 
sion of all his impenitent neighbors. Why do we so often 
see this first love and zeal of the young convert soon wax 
cold. I fear we must refer it to the unspiritual and worldly 
state of the church. His ardor does not avail to raise the 
temperature of her zeal, but she, alas ! reduces his to the 
low dead level of her own. Thus, a cold, barren religion 
is propagated and perpetuated, and the salvation of a per- 
ishing world is indefinitely postponed. 



54 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

I must not say more j but with such a subject, and on 
such an occasion, how could I say less ? An angel's tongue 
can not tell how much you and I need, and the world 
needs, a more Christlike spirit, and a more apostolic zeal. 
Oh, my brethren, when we look at the opening fields for 
Christian effort, and the perishing multitudes that go to 
form the harvest, must we not say with one voice, " if 
there ever was a time when the church of Christ should 
fall down on her face before the throne, and plead for a 
new and holier order of Christians and of Christian min- 
isters, men full of faith and the Holy Grhost, — that time 
is now passing over us." 

Dear brethren, how many praying men and women have 
lived and labored and died in the faith of Jesus and as 
witnesses for his truth, on this spot! Other men have 
labored, and you have entered into their labors. I will 
institute no comparison between the living and the dead. 
Among the latter I call to mind some, both men and women, 
of blessed memory, whose names can never be heard by 
me, or by this church, but with tender, grateful emotions, — 
now radiant in glory, and drawn into loving and everlasting 
companionship with Jesus. If you make good their vacant 
places, and fill the measure of their faithfulness, you will 
do well; and if, through grace, you excel them, their pure, 
celestial spirits will feel no envy or jealousy. Oh, no ! they 
will exult rather in your holy love and fruitfulness in every 
good work, and new songs of praise to the Grod of Salvation 
will break forth before his glorious throne. 



AFTERNOON DISCOUESE. 55 

" The Lord bless thee, and keep thee : The Lord make 
his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee : The 
Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee 
peace." 



At the conclusion of this discourse, seventeen 
individuals present were admitted to membership in 
the church, six by letter, and eleven upon the pro- 
fession of their faith ; and the Lord's Supper was 
administered to more than one thousand communi- 
cants. Rev. Drs. Linsley, Aiken, and Beecher, with 
Rev. Dr. Crawford, of Deerfield, Mass., son-in-law 
of Rev. Dr. Griffin, the first pastor of the church, 
officiated. It was a scene of tender and solemn 
interest, never to be forgotten by those who par- 
ticipated in it. 



ittftmtg 



jjanmm* 



EVENING DISCOURSE. 

BY KEV. EDWAED BEECHEK, D.D. 

PASTOR FROM DECEMBER 27, 1826, TO OCTOBER 28, 1830. 



" Patjx, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which 
are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and 
peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the 
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all 
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. According as he hath 
chosen us in him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be 
holy and without blame before him in love. Having predestinated us unto 
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good 
pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath 
made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through 
his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; 
wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; having 
made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, 
which he hath purposed in himself. That in the dispensation of the fullness 
of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which 
are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him. In whom also we have 
obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him 
who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." — Ephesians i. 1-11. 




| E have in these words a comprehensive view of 

cTj^ the history and destinies of the church of God. 

•KjKJj? Elect, before the foundation of the world, to holi- 

m* ness, predestinated to the adoption of children, 

redeemed through atoning blood, — and all this not on 

grounds of individual desert, but in order to consummate 

an eternal purpose of God to reorganize the universe under 

one head through Christ. 

5 



60 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

Such is the sublime and yet inspired view of the relations 
and destinies of the church. Not indeed of any outward 
worldly organization hearing that name, but of that redeemed 
multitude, of every age, who are truly restored to the life 
of G-od, and, as a glorious organic whole, are at last united 
to him in the covenant of eternal love, and in the ever- 
lasting fellowship of his kingdom and reign. 

This result is represented as effected not suddenly, but 
through a long course of ages, by a dispensation adapted 
to secure this final issue only, in the fullness of times, — 
that is, after a long course of development, ending in the 
final judgment, and by which the universe shall be fully 
prepared for the mature and glorious result. 

Amid all the conflict which has existed on earth, to 
make good a claim to the name and authority of the church 
of Grod, those, and those only, will at last possess them, 
who shall be found to have lived and acted in the closest 
sympathy with him, in the development of those great ideas 
that are involved in the execution of this eternal purpose. 

It is a succession, from age to age, of divine ideas and 
Christian experience, upon which depends the continuity 
and connection of the church of Grod, and not an unbroken 
line of outward organization. If the true divine ideas and 
spirit die out, nothing remains but an organic corpse, falsely 
called by the name of the church of Grod. 

If you, beloved brethren, who are or have been members 
of this church, are in that line of thought and experience, 
then to you the words of my text apply, and I welcome you 
to this review of the history of this church for the first 



EVENING DISCOURSE. 61 

half-century of its organic life. But what is the history of 
this church ? Grod only can give a full answer to that 
question, for he only understands it as it appears in the 
invisible world, and that is its true history. To understand 
truly the history of this church, is to understand the divine 
ideas, purposes, and emotions which gave rise to its organ- 
ization, and have been unfolded in its progress. There is 
a view of history, even of the history of the church, which 
is superficial and narrow in its range of thought. It is 
outward and human. It is a mere detail of facts and 
statistics ) or, if underlying principles are considered, it is 
from a low point of vision. 

Thus viewed, the history of this church would unfold 
in dry detail who were the originators of the enterprise ; 
when, by whom, and how the church was organized ; what 
were their doctrines and order ; who their successive pas- 
tors ; what their yearly statistics of gain or loss, in mem- 
bership, influence, and resources ; and what their present 
numbers and power. Even from such a history, of such a 
church, much beyond all doubt could be learned to interest 
and instruct; and yet no just idea could thus be formed 
of the peculiar and distinguishing ideas of God out of 
which the movement sprung ; no thrilling emotions, no tide 
of feeling, would lift the soul on high, nor would any 
genuine insight be given into the spirit of the movement, 
nor into its relations to the great whole towards which the 
development of the divine purposes in the course of ages 
is tending. 

No one who believes that there is a Glod, will deny the 



62 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

simple but sublime doctrine of the text, that he worketh 
all things after the counsel of his own will. His ideas and 
purposes underlie the creation of the material and the 
spiritual world, and give shape to the development of prov- 
idence in both. Nor can there be any true history of the 
church, nor indeed of any thing, which does not regard 
primarily the development and embodiment of the divine 
ideas. 

These ideas are generally at first unknown to the masses 
of men, and dwell as abstract conceptions in the minds of a 
few, who, by communion with God, rise above their age. 
But as these divine conceptions come into active develop- 
ment from age to age, in order to assume their place as 
reigning powers on earth, they cease to be abstract thoughts 
of individual minds, and begin to embody themselves in 
outward and visible organizations. These, too, are commonly 
at first so feeble as to be overlooked and despised by the 
great worldly powers ) and yet, as embodying the sublime 
and deathless ideas of Grod, they are destined to an immor- 
tality of ever-increasing power. They are a little leaven 
in a vast mass, and yet destined to pervade and leaven the 
whole. 

The necessity of such an organic embodiment of ideas 
implies that all things tend to and result in a designed 
organic exclusion of them by the reigning powers of earth, 
invisible and visible, and that they are resisted when they 
put in their claim to be embodied and reign in human 
society. Accordingly, the main element of the history of 
this world, truly apprehended, is the resistance of organized 



EVENING DISCOURSE. 63 

powers to the progress of these divine ideas. Often the 
conflict over one idea lasts for centuries, until, at last, it 
wins its day and place. 

From this point, we are now able to approximate to a 
true conception of the real church of Grod, in all ages, of 
which we profess to be a part, and from our relation to 
which arises all of our interest and importance. The real 
church, in any age, consists of those, and those only, who 
by regeneration and sanctification have been so brought into 
intellectual and moral sympathy with God, that through 
them he has developed his ideas and purposes, and embodied 
them in human society. The true church, thus viewed, is 
one and continuous, just as is Glod's plan. 

The history of this world, then, is a history of conflicts 
for divine ideas, as the proper and only lawful organic 
principles of human society. 

The progress in this warfare is, of course, onward and 
upward. A divine idea, which has once conquered and won 
its ground, is never lost on the great scale. Every such 
idea is permanently retained, and becomes the basis of new 
successive developments. 

The whole system of society, growing out of and based 
on this natural life, ought, according to the divine idea, to 
be subordinated to the spiritual life. The final issue of all 
things should be to produce, support, and perfect it, and so 
reunite all again to Gk>d. So used, it has immense power ; 
and this consummation is the perfection of the develop- 
ment of Glod's ideas in this world. 

We need not wonder, then, that the systems of hostile 



64 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

spirits ignore the true idea of life in God, and of the 
analogies of natural to spiritual life, and of the subordina- 
tion of the whole system to that end. Their policy is to 
exclude God, and to enthrone creatures in his place. This 
is done sometimes by a denial of his being ; at others, by 
exalting him so far above human knowledge and sympathy, 
that he ceases to be an active power in life, and created 
beings take his place. Society, too, is organized to carry out 
such a system, — to exalt creatures, and exclude the one true 
God. Such organizations, too, may wield immense power, 
of various kinds. Wealth, armies, intellect, fashion, num- 
bers, rank, uphold the reign of apostasy from God. And 
so great, for a time, is their power, that the simple, true, 
sublime ideas of God seem weak, contemptible, and even 
insane. 

But they are never weak. True and sublime views of the 
universal system may be held by individuals against an age, 
and against organized power; nevertheless, they are sus- 
tained by still greater power. God, and the invisible uni- 
verse of holy minds, and the eternal order of things, 
underlie and sustain them, and the eternal course of Provi- 
dence will give them augmented power. Therefore, to give 
God's ideas due power, there is needed a habit of transcend- 
ing the senses and the present order of things, and looking 
at the invisible world in the light of God. This is the 
habit of faith, and it is the characteristic by which, in all 
ages, the church has been united to God. Faith gives 
present power to the spiritual universe, as it is, and in its 
future developments. 



EVENING DISCOURSE. 65 

To reveal the power of G-od's ideas in act, requires his 
providence and time. It is the action of these elements 
which produces the sublime results which characterize the 
history of the church in all ages. The ideas developed are 
God's; the system to which they belong is infinite and 
glorious ; human power arrayed against them is great. One 
or two often stand alone at the great points of conflict, 
against the wealth, intellect, and physical power of an age. 
They are ridiculed as visionaries, as abstractionists, as mad- 
men. They stand for an idea, for a visionary and imprac- 
ticable principle. They are contemned, hated, slain ; but 
they die testifying to its truth and power. 

God, meantime, and the invisible universe, work on. Cen- 
turies roll by, and at last the contemned idea has triumphed ; 
the invisible, intangible, impracticable truth is enthroned, 
and sways its scepter over numbers, organization, force, 
wealth, and is eternal. Now, too, wisdom reveals its true 
worth, as more precious than gold. During the conflict, it 
calls often for the loss of gold ; and when a conflict for a 
divine idea comes on, men take their choice between it and 
gold ; and often the men of wealth and standing prefer the 
existing order of things, apparently so fixed and permanent, 
and contemn the visionary advocates of intangible ideas. 
Nevertheless, ages roll on, and God's ideas prevail, and 
become the life of the ruling order of things ; they become 
fixed and eternal. Thus, through successive ages, the divine 
ideas, through organic development, advance from victory 
to victory, until at last the glorious consummation spoken 
of in my text, and so often referred to in the inspired 



6Q SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

oracles, is fully attained, all of God's eternal conceptions 
and purposes are triumphant, the universe is reorganized in 
accordance with them, and all false and hostile organizations 
fall to rise no more. 

This, then, is the sublime import of the text : that when, 
after the course of ages, the fullness of time shall have 
arrived, there shall be a reorganization of the universe, a 
glorious and all-comprehending order of things, in which all 
truth, and beauty, and power, will be harmonious parts of 
one eternal system, centralized in God and the church by 
the great redemptive work of Christ. It is this that invests 
the history of the church in this world with its glory and 
sublimity. 

To the eye of man, in the hour of conflict, nothing 
appears but weakness, suffering, and an endurance of con- 
tempt, for something invisible, for a principle, a mere idea, 
bringing no present profit or reward, but rather involving 
sacrifice and loss. Yet, on the other hand, this idea is 
God's idea ; the principle is a part of his infinite and 
eternal system; and in due time the hour of its eternal 
victory must come. 

Let us trace, in a summary way, the course of this conflict 
of ideas. First of all, man, in the earliest ages, not deny- 
ing the being of God, set at naught his retributive justice 
and power, in open and contemptuous insolence. This 
development of depravity characterized the centuries before 
the flood. Long life and great physical energies emboldened 
them, and no previous history of divine retributions had 
revealed the power and justice of God. For ages God 



EVENING DISCOURSE. 67 

endured the increasing outrages of man, and at last disclosed 
his purpose of judgment and retribution by Noah. And 
here was developed the first great world-struggle for an idea. 
That idea was the reality of the retributive power and 
justice of God. These an impious world derided; and 
openly contemned, in fearless impiety, the omnipotent ruler, 
judge, and avenger. (See Jude 15.) Of this strife, heathen 
mythology has preserved the image, in the fabled war of 
the giants against heaven. 

In this war, Noah stood alone against a world, the con- 
temned advocate of an unpopular idea, the vindication of 
the power and justice of God. But beneath these unpopu- 
lar abstractions was the omnipotence of God, in them was 
his vitality. Men scoffed and blasphemed, but God, and 
Noah in him, won the day. The fountains of the great deep 
were broken up, the windows of heaven were opened, and 
the deluge swept to perdition the world of the ungodly. 
So this conflict was decided, and a fear of the power and 
justice of God fell upon the world, from which it never 
recovered. It was conceded that there was no hope in an 
open warfare with God, whatever might be the power 
and numbers that might combine against him. 

The next effort was to exclude the true idea of the real 
God, creator of all things, as the present and active ruler 
of this world. The creation of the world was denied. 
Matter was declared to be self-existing and eternal. God 
was exalted out of the reach of human conception, and 
vice-gods, or men, were practically enthroned in his place. 
Thus God, not denied or defied, was practically exiled. 



68 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

Hence came polytheism, in its various developments; and 
the organizations of the world were based on this assumed 
system of things. Practically, gods many and lords many 
ruled the world. All the wealth, intellect, numbers, and 
military power of the world sustained polytheistic organ- 
izations. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Tyre, Persia, Greece, 
and Koine were polytheistic nations. They, too, had the 
power of the world. The idea of one Grod, a spirit, the 
creator of all things, a present Grod, who could be known 
and loved, the life of all, holy, just and good, full of sym- 
pathy and love, and yet an avenger of evil, — was a mere 
visionary, impractical idea. To the true church alone it 
was real and powerful, and to develop and defend it was 
their great mission. For centuries this idea was the center 
of world-wide conflict. All of the Old Testament was 
written in view of it. But one nation, and that small and 
relatively powerless, stood on the side of the one true Grod ; 
and they were charged by the rest of the world with 
illiberal and narrow-minded bigotry. Beneath the power of 
this contempt, and worldly seductions addressed to their 
depraved passions, this one people was so prone to apostatize 
as to need correction by repeated chastisements and cap- 
tivities. Yet Grod's elect, in every age, — even if alone, as 
Elijah, — stood up in its defence. 

When Christ came, this great conflict of centuries was 
at its height. But he came to give to Glod's idea its final 
and eternal victory. He came to recall the unknown Glod 
from his exile, back into actual life, as a real, living Grod, 
who could be known and loved. This was one great end 



EVENING DISCOURSE. 69 

of the incarnation. It had been said, the eternal Father, 
the infinite Grod, can not be known; let us enthrone gods 
whom we can know. Christ revealed the supreme Grod in 
human form, disclosed his ideas, purposes, and sympathies, 
and said, " He who hath seen me, hath seen the Father." 
In human form he atoned for sin, and thus secured the 
influences of the Holy Spirit to reunite men to Grod in holy 
knowledge and victorious love. And now where is this 
idea of the one supreme Grod, a being who may be known 
and loved, the true and only ruler of all things ? It gained 
its victory centuries ago, and now the wealth and power of 
the world obey it. Monotheistic nations are at the head of 
the world in knowledge and civilization, in arts and in arms. 
Polytheistic nations, once the rulers of the world, are in 
universal decadence and decay. The balance of power was 
changed forever, when Rome renounced polytheism, and 
bowed to the cross of the despised Nazarene. 

The recognition of the one Grod being thus restored, and 
he being acknowledged as the practical ruler of all things, 
the next step of Satan was falsely to organize human society 
in his name, by radical corruptions of the true conception 
of G-od, and a spurious religious experience, thus retaining 
the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. This 
was the deep root of the great apostasy so often and so fear- 
fully portended in the New Testament. It originated in a 
false and Grnostic idea of the material system and of natural 
life; and the influence of this idea reacted on the concep- 
tion of Grod. Thus, Grnostic ideas perverted and corrupted 
the whole system. Marriage was pronounced impure. Cel- 



70 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

ibacy, fasting, and forms usurped the place of holiness. 
Hence came the conception of a proud, heartless, unsympa- 
thizing God. Hence came sacramentalism, formalism, and 
outward organization. Hence came a worldly church in 
league with the state. The whole was a form of godliness, 
denying its power. But the true conception of Grod, thus 
suppressed by Satan, could not die. It was destined to 
have its resurrection, its conflict, and its victory. Nor could 
the bondage of the human mind and of society, based on 
this false conception of Grod, be eternal. It was destined 
to be assailed and destroyed. Hence, in the fullness of 
time, a new warfare for divine ideas was sure to begin. 
Accordingly, the strife of ages has turned on the purpose 
of Grod, to reveal and make efficient true conceptions of 
himself, as the proper organic forces of human society, and 
to give the true power of godliness an ascendency over 
forms and worldly organizations and power. In doing this, 
it became necessary to vindicate the duty of the correspond- 
ing right of man to live for Grod in all things, whatever 
anti-christian organizations might enjoin. This right ex- 
tends not only to religious, but also to civil and political 
life. For this idea the martyrs contended, who would not 
take the mark of the beast nor the number of his name. 
For ages, this was a mere idea, unable to organize itself 
in any extended society. The beast and the woman in 
scarlet ruled the world in Grod's name, and yet denied 
him in idea and in life. At last, Grod moved the world 
through the Reformation, and in part enthroned these ideas 
in outward organizations, repudiating and refuting the 



EVENING DISCOURSE. 71 

universal organic claims of Rome. But in part only, for 
though Protestantism was detached from Rome, and ascet- 
icism, and formalism, still, even Protestant kings and states, 
from the habits of ages, claimed the right to decide how 
men should worship God. 

That the so-called Christian state was inferior to the Word 
of God, and to individual conscience, in the field of religion 
and church order, was yet to be learned • and the develop- 
ment of this idea was the mission of Puritanism. It was 
not at first fully apprehended. It needed centuries of 
development in New England before it was fully disclosed 
in its purity and power. But the peculiar church order 
of New England tended to this result. It gave to each 
church independent power, and made the Word of God the 
only standard of doctrine and of order. Thus the despotic 
power of great human centralization was paralyzed, and the 
elements of the highest spiritual freedom were conferred 
upon mankind. Long were the ideas underlying this great 
result weak, persecuted, contemned. They were derided as 
visionary abstractions, and as tending to disorganize human 
society and reduce all things to chaos. But they have 
triumphed. They are enthroned, and the whole world is 
yet to yield to their sway. 

Thus the battle for freedom to think and act for God in 
all things was fought and won. But still another came 
on, — the greatest, the most arduous, the most wide-reach- 
ing of all. Men were next to be taught how to use that 
freedom aright, and to defend the truth against an abuse 
of freedom. Think, then, for a moment, how much this 

6 



72 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

involved. All false conceptions of God introduced by past 
ages, — all false decisions in doctrine made by force and not 
by reason, were to be reviewed and corrected; all pious 
frauds were to be renounced, that nothing but the true 
character of God and his pure truth might remain. But 
the possession of this liberty, and the undertaking of this 
work, rendered certain an over-action and an abuse. It 
was sure, as men are, that the truth itself would be assailed 
as an ancient error; that the doctrines of Depravity and 
Regeneration, of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atone- 
ment, and of Eternal Retributions, would be called in ques- 
tion and rejected; and the Bible itself be repudiated as 
the basis of them all. Meantime, the progress of the induc- 
tive sciences and of the arts would place new elements of 
power in the hands of men, and start new theories of pro- 
gress, and of the reorganization of human society under the 
lead of the new ideas and forces of the ages. Where the 
highest freedom had been reached, this battle would, of 
course, be most intense, and therefore its center was in 
New England. 

The divine idea to be developed in opposition to this 
movement was that the fundamental doctrines of Chris- 
tianity, truly apprehended, can be vindicated as ra- 
tional in the center of the highest knowledge possible to 
man, and of the most perfect freedom. The church was 
now to say, Let all concealment and all force be abjured; 
let the full and highest light of divine illumination be 
invoked and enjoyed; let science be fully developed, yet 
can the Bible be defended as the Word of God, and the 



EVENING DISCOURSE. 73 

fundamental doctrines of Christianity as the only true 
organic powers of human society, the only hope of the 
world. At this point, Grod moved to develop new ideas, 
and hence this church. Look at the case. The downward 
progress of things had extended so far here that orthodoxy 
was by the majority of the Puritan churches abandoned in 
this city, as unworthy of the freedom and progress of the 
age; the leading civil influences were arrayed against it; 
the college of the State was made an engine of assault 
against the faith of the fathers; the judicial power had 
virtually made the church a mere appendage of the parish, 
and the germs of a destructive criticism of the Bible began 
to be developed on every side. Meantime, in this center 
of New England, and even in the small remnant in the 
churches planted by the fathers, the fire of piety was 
burning feebly, and its energies were almost exhausted. 
Many of the founders of Park Street, had sunk so low as 
to feel incompetent to engage in social prayer. To meet 
this crisis, there was needed, first of all, a revival of the life 
of G-od, and then a power of learning to embrace the wide 
range of thought involved in the work to be done. A 
thorough vindication and exposition of the Word of Grod, 
the invigoration and extension of revivals of religion, and an 
energetic development of the spirit of benevolent enterprise 
in the form of missions and reform ; — this was the sublime 
work to be accomplished. And now, beneath the inspiring 
influences of the eternal mind, came into existence the 
different, but conspiring parts of a world-embracing system, 
designed to develop and vindicate the great divine idea of 



7± SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

the age. They were like the wheels in Ezekiel's vision, 
full of eyes, and animated and moved by one spirit. 

To take the lead in the great work of biblical exposition 
and defence, Andover Theological Seminary was founded, 
and Moses Stuart called to his post, to thrill this nation 
by the fiery enthusiasm of his spirit, and to arouse the culti- 
vated intellect of the church to an intense and profound 
study, exposition, and vindication of the Word of Grod. 
As a counterpoise to the Cambridge apostasy, Amherst 
College was endowed. Mills and his associates aroused the 
churches to the great work of foreign missions, and the 
American Board was organized, and all other parts of the 
great system of evangelization and reform sprang into life. 
The same movement called this church into being. The 
men who moved in its formation were in full and profound 
sympathy with all of this enlarged system of things. It 
was founded for the exposition and defence of evangelical 
truth, and for the extension of its influences throughout 
the world, and into all departments of human thought and 
action. It was to be a center of revivals at home and of 
missionary enterprise abroad. Griffin bore aloft the ban- 
ner of Grod, and soon, among its leading members were such 
men as Evarts and Hill, whose labors in the cause of 
foreign missions need no eulogy from me. Nor have I time 
to trace in detail the enlargement of the church ; the labors 
of its successive pastors ; its efforts in the organization and 
support of new churches in the city and its vicinity ■ the 
call of my honored father to this field of labor, and his 
wide-reaching and victorious apostolic labors, and my own 



EVENING DISCOURSE. 75 

labors for a time as the pastor of this church, in delightful 
fellowship with him and other brethren beloved ; — the 
fervor, the enthusiasm, and the energy of the great move- 
ment were divine, and transcend my powers of description. 
But I will endeavor to look at some of the conceptions 
peculiar to this movement, and out of which its deepest 
emotions and most fervid enthusiasm sprang. 

In the first place, the doctrine of a spiritual millennium, 
not far remote, and involving the perfect reorganization of 
human society, as set forth by Edwards and Hopkins, 
had taken possession of their minds and pervaded all their 
anticipations. In this, are found the highest motives to 
effort, and the justification of the highest hopes, and the 
most earnest intellectual study. The victory of Christ is to 
come, not by force, but by intellectual and moral develop- 
ment. What encouragement, then, for the highest intel- 
lectual and moral effort ! No form of millenarianism had 
any power to weaken these convictions and to check such 
a joyful and impulsive faith by portending the deterioration 
of all things on the field of intellectual and moral conflict, 
until Christ should at last interpose to effect by force what 
he had failed to accomplish by the power of truth and of 
the Holy Spirit. 

It followed from this general view, that the channel of 
divine power was to be, as of old, through revivals, originat- 
ing from the direct and special influences of the Holy Spirit 
attending the faithful and earnest preaching of the Word. 
Connected with this, was the idea of a special relationship 



76 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

of this country to the renovation of the world. This idea 
had been developed by the first President Edwards, and 
had diffused itself through the religious convictions of the 
masses. The ideas out of which it sprung, were simple and 
obvious, and yet sublime. The magnitude of our prospec- 
tive development, the freedom of our institutions, the room 
for a glorious reorganization of all things, if the extent of 
revivals and the power of sanctification should turn the 
hearts of the majority with true devotion towards God. In 
one of the yearly reports of Evarts, these ideas are devel- 
oped with transcendent elegance and power. 

Moreover, as the great renovation of all things was at 
hand, and as an instrument of such power was needed, and 
as the providence of God seemed to have been ordered to 
prepare it, it came to be incorporated as an element of hope, 
and almost as an article of faith, in the minds of the lead- 
ers of this great evangelical reaction, and no less in the 
hearts of the people. It created an all-pervading enthusiasm 
of excitement like that which existed just before the coming 
of Christ. It was also an article of belief that the agency 
of the Holy Spirit would not supersede the wise use of 
means, and hence the necessity of fitting our doctrinal 
system more perfectly for its work by removing all human 
additions and corruptions, and adapting it to act on the 
mind in accordance with the divine laws of thought, emo- 
tion, and choice established by Glod in the constitution of 
the mind. This led to a revision of the theology of other 
ages, and this led to controversy even among the good • and 
in this controversy all the doctrines were re-debated, so 



EVENING DISCOURSE. 77 

that the subjects of old discussions came up anew; as for 
example, the trinity, the divinity, and incarnation of Christ, 
the depravity and regeneration of man, the atonement, and 
its issues and results. Yet it was not a mere repetition of 
any discussion that had gone before. It was a review of 
all things in the enjoyment of a new and unwonted freedom 
on a field of moral influence of unexampled extent, and 
with a power of social reorganization unknown before, and 
with a proximity of final results on earth deeply stirring 
the mind. If, now, we assume that in fact the ideas and 
emotions of Glod were underlying all of this movement, and 
tending to such final issues, we can form some conception 
of the profound feeling that pervaded and bathed this period, 
and made it a half century of the deepest, most absorbing, 
most delightful, most heavenly emotion. 

Let us look at some of the results. It has been a half 
century of earnest intellectual effort, in a wide range of 
thought. Revivals, biblical exposition and defence, the 
translation of the Bible into the languages of men, the 
theory and practice of social reform, have all been studied 
in the light of a glorious coming future, and under the 
stimulus of its highest excitement. It has been a half 
century of revivals and of missionary enterprise. It has 
been a half century of profound religious discussion and 
controversy. Out of it, vast results, no doubt, have sprung 
for coming ages. The records of this church show the 
results, in part, of the revivals. The history of other 
churches in this city springing out of the movement, the 
invisroration of evangelical doctrine and the evangelical 



78 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

churches in the State at large, the increasing power of the 
missionary enterprise and its results in all coming ages, the 
formation of various associations for domestic missions and 
evangelization, the inception of various measures of social 
reform, — all of these things are to be regarded as the 
results of the divine ideas and emotions out of which this 
church grew; and in them this church has acted sympa- 
thetically, and to them it has consecrated its resources. For 
it is an eminent characteristic of a true church of Grod, that 
it can not be narrow and local in its feelings. If it will 
commune with Glod, it must extend its thoughts and sym- 
pathies as far as those of God himself extend. Neverthe- 
less, though so much has been effected, the main idea of 
the times is still in conflict, and has not gained the victory. 
Its complete victory implies a perfect development of the 
true G-od, in his full intellectual and moral power, as in- 
vested with all truth, beauty, honor, and right, as the great 
organic power of human society, and yet in perfect consis- 
tency with this, a deep and thorough development of human 
depravity, and a regenerating power that shall penetrate to 
its depths, and new create individuals and society at large. 
This, I need not say, has not yet been obtained. 

We are not to overlook in this review the reactionary 
progress of the anti-christian principles of the age. They, 
too, have revived, and reviewed, and reorganized all the old 
forms of error. Atheism, Pantheism, Infidelity, Material- 
ism, Spiritualism, Infidel Phrenology, Natural Theism, have 
been developed with new power. All of these, however, 
are not mere repetitions of old errors, — they partake of the 



EVENING DISCOURSE. 70 

spirit of the age, and are revised, reviewed, and modified 
for an end. The true answer to all these is the same, — a 
full development of God. 

The last great idea of the series is the idea of perfect 
social organization in and through God. This is involved 
in what precedes, but in this last half century it has come 
more distinctly forward, and has been more definitely the 
subject of study than ever before. The Christian doctrine 
rests on the assumption that all minds were originally made 
for God, but have been deranged and disordered by sin, and 
that a renewed life in time is essential to their proper 
reorganization, and that he has a right to diffuse that life, 
and to claim room for its power in social systems, including 
government, political economy, commerce, education, and 
daily life. This divine idea, too, has begun its development 
in weakness, and has had its martyrs. It is, to most even 
yet, an abstract impractical conception. Slavery reacts at 
its claims, and seeks to fortify itself in political constitutions 
and parties. Governments repudiate its claims as visionary 
and impractical. Political economy, arts, manufactures, 
commerce, repudiate its laws. But the idea is a divine 
idea. It has in God a divine life. It can not die. It will 
gain power from year to year. It will embody itself. It 
will array increasing moral power against all corrupt organ- 
izations, till they are aroused to a last and decisive conflict. 
Then God will come in supreme intellectual power and 
majesty, and judge, condemn, and consume all false organ- 
izations, and enthrone all his own ideas in those forms and 
relations which are best adapted to this present earthly 



80 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

sphere. Then, after a long period of the glorious reign of 
divine truth and order, will come a brief revolt and a fierce 
onset of the powers of error, to be followed by the final 
judgment, and the eternal reorganization of the universe so 
emphatically spoken of in my text. 

1. The true history of this church is not disconnected, 
local, provincial; it is the result of the divine ideas and 
emotions in ages past and for ages to come, and is, therefore, 
intimately connected with God's great whole. It is a living- 
part of that one great living body, the church, of which 
God is in all ages the life. Since it has been a strife for 
universal principles and a development of God's ideas, it 
can not be disconnected and insulated; it is rather a part 
of God's eternal, all-embracing chain of thought, plan, and 
purpose, for all ages and all worlds. The deep channel of 
God's emotions has been here revealed. 

2. The future of this church may be more striking and 
affecting than even the past, for the highest and mightiest 
development of God's ideas is yet to come. Nevertheless, 
to become meet for such a future, requires a peculiar and 
correspondent preparation. The center of that preparation 
is a higher intensity of life in God, based on a more perfect 
knowledge of him, and a more perfect moral conformity to 
him. This is essential in order to defend and rightly use 
the freedom and organic power of this land. To defend it. 
For the element of force and injustice in our national com- 
promise is seeking to become the law of the land, in order 
to enthrone organized wrong above the normal and free 



EVENING DISCOURSE. 81 

development of a life in God. To this effort all the political, 
commercial, and social depravity of our land will administer 
strength. Nothing can prepare us rightly to meet it, but 
a higher development of life in God, and of his moral power 
through the church, and of a universal consciousness of 
Christian unity in and through him. 

Still more do we need higher measures of divine life, 
in order to carry out all of God's organic ideas to their 
perfection, in so great a field. Never was there a theater 
of action so vast, with elements of so much power, to be 
controlled. There is power in God for the emergency, 
beyond all doubt • but that power needs a channel of devel- 
opment. And, in comparison with the crisis, our ideas are 
yet low and unworthy, and our moral power is weakness. 
We need, then, in its fullest measure, the all-renovating 
baptism of the Divine Spirit. 

3. The review of the past calls for gratitude to God, and 
should be so conducted as to exalt him, and not us, except 
as in him. Not unto us, not unto us, Lord, but unto thy 
name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. 

His mercies have been in part common to you and other 
churches. Others have been peculiar to you, according to 
times and circumstances. Let all be so rehearsed and 
acknowledged, that he shall be pleased with it, — as a 
grateful commemoration of his mighty deeds, and not the 
offering of incense to the pride of man. 

4. This reunion should add new power to the fellowship 
of the churches. To how many other churches is this 



82 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

church now linked by her own children, now returning to 
renew the memories of other days, and to all by common 
principles and interests. The tide of divine ideas and 
emotions underlies us all, and lifts all together towards our 
eternal inheritance. There is one Grod and Father of all, 
who is above all, in all, and through all. There is one 
Lord, one faith, one baptism. May his Spirit, then, make 
us still more perfectly one, as Christ and the Father are 
one, — even as he prayed before he gave himself to death 
for our redemption. 

5. The Grod who has done so much, can complete his 
work by a final reunion of the sons of the pilgrims in one 
common fellowship of love and faith. For this, in this 
sacred hour, let us pray, in the full assurance of faith. 
When we recall the prayers and labors of our pious fathers, 
we can not doubt that their children are still beloved for 
their fathers' sake. The excitement and alienation of con- 
troversy have gone by. The evil tendency of false systems 
is more and more revealing itself. Why should not the 
Divine Spirit then be trusted, as able to bring all the 
children of so beloved an ancestry to the unity of the faith 
of the gospel in its purest and noblest forms ? How 
glorious such a result, when the short episode of division 
and strife has for ever passed away. 

6. If there is so much sublimity and soul -elevating- 
emotion in the review of the past on an occasion like this, 
if there is so much joy in such a reunion, what must it be 
to review all things from the throne of God ; and what 



EVENING DISCOURSE. 83 

must be the joy of that final gathering that shall bring 
home the perfected church to her eternal inheritance as 
reigning in unity with God over a reorganized universe. 

The conflicts of earth pass by like the shifting scenes of 
a great drama. Generation after generation of actors dis- 
appears. Where now are those beloved men who greeted 
and sustained me when I came, young and inexperienced, 
to this field of conflict ? Where are such as Evarts, 
and Hubbard, and Homes, and Homer, and Odiorne ? 
Where, too, are such as Edwards, and Wisner, and 
Greene, and Cornelius ? The vision of these and many 
other honored names passes before me at this hour. But 
they are not with us, nor shall they return. But we shall 
go to them. Yea, all the pure and noble of every age, 
from their various fields of conflict and of victory, shall be 
gathered together in one. What a reunion will that be ! 
What a review of the past will it give ! What a sublime 
vision of the future ! 

Let, then, the thought of these things elevate and inspire 
us, as we separate and return to our various fields of labor. 
We are still one. There is one God and Father of all, 
who is above us all, and in and through us all. There 
is one Lord, one faith, one baptism ; nor shall the all- 
comprehending purposes of God fail of a glorious fullfil- 
ment. When the fullness of times shall come, we shall 
be gathered together in one, in a reorganized universe. 
The reign of error, sin, and discord shall end, and truth, 
holiness, and divine concord shall reign and triumph ever- 
more, — to the glory of the Triune God. 



igmus. 



HYMNS. 



f*|LN the worship of the clay, two original hymns, 

^J prepared for the occasion by Hodges Reed, 

w Esq. of Taunton, Mass., formerly a member of 

& the Park Street Choir, were sung, the whole 

congregation uniting their voices in the service. 



THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES. 

Who are the viewless ones 

That hover o'er us now, 
Well pleased to see the wanderers come, 

In their old home to bow ? 
They are our fathers in the Lord, 
Who went, long since, to their reward. 

We seem to hear, once more, 

Those startling trumpet calls, — 
Again the sleeping echoes wake 

Within these hallowed walls : 
Blessing and honor, glory and power, 
Unto the Lamb for evermore. * 

*Dr. Griffin, tlie first Pastor, often repeated, with great effect, Rev. v. 13. 
' Blessing, and honor,'' &c. 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

Another man of God * 

Points to the upward way. 
Whose earnest voice, though hushed in death, 

Eings in this house to-day. 
His pleadings, once baptized with tears. 
Still linger 'mid revolving years. 

These servants of the Lord, 

With Jesus at their side, 
And many a trophy, gathered here. 

Who in the faith has died, — 
Are they not present with us now, 
While we within this temple bow ? 

Ye men who broke the bread 

Of Heaven, and led the way, 
And all ye children who return 

To your old home to-day, 
Sing of G-od's We and faithfulness. 
Of which we all are witnesses. 

* Rev. S. E. Dwight, D.D., the second Pastor. 



89 



THE LITTLE ONE A THOUSAND. 

Came hither, fifty years ago, 

A little praying band, 
And built a house unto the Lord, 

And viewed the promised land. 
They went forth weeping, scattering seed. 

But now again are come, 
Bringing their garner full of sheaves, 

To shout the harvest home. 

Of all that praying band, who first 

Went forth the fields to till, 
The most are garnered in the skies, — 

The few are with us still. 
And while they linger on the verge, 

To count their victories o'er, 
Behold the signal — ■ " GrOD is trtje," 

Upon the further shore. 

Yes, " Grod is true." The little one 

Has to a thousand grown ; 
Then let us pray and labor on, 

Till all our work is done. 
The fields are white, and whiter now 

Than fifty years ago ; 
And still the promise of the Lord 

Stands good for those that sow. 




nlinzl. 




ix3 



THE FESTIVAL. 



half past two o'clock on Monday after- 
noon, February 28, nearly one thousand per- 
sons assembled in the Boston Music Hall, 
and were conducted to their seats at the 
refreshment tables by E. W. Pike, Esq., Chief 
Marshal of the day. The sketch of the proceed- 
ings through the afternoon and evening, is taken 
from the full and excellent report of the Boston 
Evening Traveler, in its issue of March 1. 

The semi-centennial anniversary of the organization of 
the Park Street Church was celebrated yesterday by a 
festival at the Music Hall. The occasion was one which 
will be long remembered by all who were present. There 
were plates set for over nine hundred persons. The dinner 
was provided by J. B. Smith, and we believe all were 
amply supplied with every thing desirable to eat. The 
tables occupied the entire body of the hall. Tables were 
also set upon the platform, where clergymen and other 
invited guests were seated. 



94 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

While the company were coining in, a voluntary was 
played upon the organ, and afterwards a glee was sung 
by the choir of the Park Street Church, under the direc- 
tion of Professor Frost. The singers were located in 
the second balcony, opposite the platform, and performed 
their part of the exercises in fine style. 

PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEW OF THE HALL. 

As soon as the company were all seated at the table, 
Rev. Mr. Stone, who presided on the occasion, announced 
that there were artists present who desired to take photo- 
graphic views of the scene. He jocosely requested all to 
take the best position they could, with their pleasantest 
smiles ; and when all were still, he would give three raps 
upon the table as a signal for the artists. This was done, 
. and the pictures were taken. 

A blessing was then asked by Rev. Dr. Aiken, of Ver- 
mont, after which the edibles upon the tables were discussed 
in right good earnest by the nine hundred hungry guests. 

invited guests. 

Rev. Mr. Stone sat in the center of the table upon 
the platform. Upon either side of him were seated Mrs. 
Crawford, the daughter of Rev. Dr. Griffin, the first 
pastor of Park Street Church, her husband, Rev. Mr. 
Crawford, Rev. Dr. Blagden, Rev. Dr. Linsley, Rev. 
Dr. Aiken, and Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher, (the three 
last the surviving ex -pastors of the church,) Rev. Mr. 
Haskell, of the Maverick Church, East Boston, Rev. H. 



THE FESTIVAL. 95 

M. Dexter, of the Pine Street Church, Rev. Dr. Ander- 
son, and Rev. Dr. Treat, of the American Board, Rev. 
Mr. Johnson, of the Bowdoin Street Church, W. T. 
Eustis, Esq., Hodges Reed, Esq. of Taunton, Rev. Mr. 
Thwing, of Portland, Rev. W. T. Eustis, of New Haven, 
Rev. Dr. Davidson, Rev. E. Aiken, returned missionary, 
Deacons Henry Hill, Julius A. Palmer, John Proc- 
tor, N. Willis, Tylor Bacheller, E. Lamson, Henry 

HOYT, E. FARNSWORTH, J. FULLARTON, C. C. LlTCHFIELD, 

T. Thwing. Also, J. V. Bacon, Peter Harvey, Edmund 
Munroe, E. W. Pike, Samuel Neale, T. W. Nicker- 
so n, and a large number of ladies who were wives of the 
gentlemen above named. 



THE FEAST OF REASON. 

At the conclusion of that part of the feast which per- 
tained to the wants of the inner man, Rev. Mr. Stone 
addressed the guests as follows : — 

SPEECH OF REV. A. L. STONE. 

" Fathers, Brethren, and Friends : It is a most 
enviable privilege to stand here to-day and be the voice 
of welcome from the old church to her returning and gather- 
ing sons and daughters. This privilege is accorded to me 
not because that voice of welcome could not be more 
felicitously uttered by some other son of our venerable 



96 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

parent, but because it was thought to belong to the place 
which I fill and the relations which I sustain. 

" I speak, then, the mother's greeting to her many chil- 
dren. She might almost ask, ' Who are these that fly as 
a cloud, and as doves to their windows ? ' A proud and 
joyful mother is she to-day. Not yet in her age, but in 
her prime ; keeping her golden bridal, and yet counting 
two thousand to-day that salute her with filial voices. 

" You have come at her call from the East and the 
West, — -from the North and the South, — the adopted homes 
sought far and near, — the fields of labor in which you 
have found room to toil for the Master. 

" The happy mother leans towards you with open arms. 
Her heart is large enough to cherish you all. She takes 
you to her bosom. She falls upon your neck and kisses 
you. The whole home is moved at your coming. The 
walls there greet you, and the stately spire, — and the 
bell striking out joy-peals, — the pulpit and the pews, — 
the aisles worn by the pacing of your feet in other days, 

— the organ, with its choral pipes, — the room of social 
prayer, most like heaven of any place this side the celestial 
gate, — the table around which we have met for banquets 
whose sweetness only the feasts of immortality can surpass, 

— all that your eyes have looked upon long since, and 
your hands have handled, and your hearts in absence 
have remembered, pronounce to you, ' Welcome ! welcome 
home ! ' 

" You know not how precious a legacy your memory is 
to us. We do not forget that you have been ours. You 



THE FESTIVAL. 97 

are still and for ever ours. The children that go out from 
their father's house, and wed, and light up hearthstones 
of their own, are non^ the less for that of the old home- 
stead still. You bear our name abroad. We quote you, 
and rejoice in you. On our anniversaries, we commemorate 
you. And blessed is this hour which brings you back 
again. Our festival were most incomplete without you. 
It were like a family thanksgiving with the elder children 
absent. Nor does it grieve the good mother that some of 
her children are not. She has no more illustrious names 
graven on her heart than some that are spoken now in 
heaven ; no sweeter joy than she feels as she bends above 
their dust and whispers to herself, ' They rest from their 
labors, and their works do follow them.' 

" Among the living, we greet here to day, first of all, 
those surviving successors in the ministry of that great 
name under which this enterprise was first set forward. Nor 
are we even without a representative of that name itself. 
A daughter of the first pastor of this church, with her 
partner, himself an honored and able minister of the gospel, 
sits at our board to-day. 

" Three of those who have broken here the bread of life 
to this people, — filling together in their time of actual 
service, seventeen years of the life of the church, — are 
present on my right hand and my left in this scene ; and 
yesterday we heard their voices again, waking the old echoes 
amid the walls that witnessed their faithfulness of long ago. 
Beloved and honored brethren, suffer me, in the name of 
all to whom you have ministered here, whom you have led, 



98 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

and taught, and blest, and comforted, — on behalf of many 
homes where your names are still the dearest household 
words spoken, — in the names of those once baptized by you, 
who have since shot up into the youthful strength of the 
church, — in the names of those who have since your time 
gathered to these portals and entered into your labors, — 
to give you the truest welcome our hearts can bestow, 

"Here before me, too, are church builders, — men and 
women who went forth from the threshold of home to found 
other Christian enterprises, to lift other walls and altars 
for prayer and praise, and the utterance of the truth as it 
is in Jesus, themselves built into the rising masonry as 
living stones, — leaders of spiritual colonies, — self-sacri- 
ficing men, — laying themselves down out of sight as foun- 
dation stones for others to build upon. The mother that 
parted with you cheerfully, though tearfully, welcomes you 
back this day. 

" Here are those whom the various providences of Grod 
have led from post to post, from family to family of his 
people, but never separate from the fellowship of the saints. 
You are brothers and sisters here, as truly as you can be 
any where, and as such we greet you. 

" Here are the veterans who have stood the brunt of 
many a spirited conflict on this field, — 'listed for life in 
this regiment, — soldiers of the old wars here waged and 
won, with battle-scars of their youth upon them, and ready 
to do and dare yet for Christ, till he crown them in the day 
of final triumph. We welcome you with your stars of 
honor, set not on your breast, but in the diadem of Jesus. 



THE FESTIVAL. 99 

" Here linger yet the founders of the church. They 
are few in number, and bowed with the weight of years. 
But four of that original twenty-six survive in our ranks. 
Two of them, the senior deacon and his wife, are living in 
the midst of us, and are at our table to-day. The snows 
of fifty years have sifted upon their locks, — or those wintry 
frosts have thinned out those locks till but few remain. 
What thoughts must be in your hearts, venerable friends, 
as you recall the old times. 

" How easily you look across the breadth of those fifty 
years ! Their farther shore is nearer and clearer to you 
than the morning of yesterday. How well you must remem- 
ber the early struggles, your comrades and fellows, the 
hopes and fears, the fluctuations of advance and retrogres- 
sion, the meetings for prayer, the adventurous outset in the 
great scheme, which is now historic. Behold your vine, 
the vine God planted by your hand ; see whereto it has 
grown. Ah, how many purple clusters have ripened upon 
its boughs, — how many weary ones have sat in its broad 
shadow. How green and flourishing it is now. Say, has 
not God been faithful ? Has he not heard your prayers, 
and crowned your hopes ? More than the light of youth 
beams in your eyes, as you survey this past. Ah, the 
light of the eternal day, of the now setting sun is dancing 
there. How many on earth bless your name and memory ! 
We bless you in the name of the Master Builder. The 
ends of the earth, the islands of the sea, bless you. Bless- 
ings from hundreds and thousands of redeemed souls shall 
be your welcome at the portals of heaven. 



100 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

'• What changes hare you seen, what changes has the 
world seen, since fifty years ago ! Other voices here will 
recall those changes more vividly than mine can do. What 
changes we shall see, and the world shall see, before another 
fifty years shall have elapsed, who can prophesy ? 

11 Our places will most of them be vacant. These little 
ones of ours will stand up to recall the impressions of this' 
hour. The grand purposes of G-od will have rolled on, — 
the deep, broad tide carried forward all its crested and 
rejoicing waves. Then, as now, the unseen guests will not 
fail the gathering. 

" The unseen guests ! We have greeted and welcomed 
the living. May we greet you from your heavenly man- 
sions ? Can ye hear mortal voices ? Welcome, thrice 
welcome, to the scenes of your earthly labors and sacrifices. 
Spirits of G-riffin and Dwight, of Dennie, and Dana, 
and Odiorne, of that other beloved and benignant Dwight, 
of Homes and Homer, of Evarts, and Hubbard, and 
Safford, — your names are a fragrant memorial from 
generation to generation of those who have followed you. 
Heaven's banquet can scarcely be sweeter to you than ours 
to-day. You are over the river. Drop your mantles upon 
us that follow you. 

" But I occupy too much of the time of this assembly. 
Other voices will better continue this strain, and in their 
various addresses cover all the record of our past." 

At the conclusion of Mr. Stone's address, there was 
applause from all parts of the house, after which the choir 
struck up " Auld Lang Syne." 



THE FESTIVAL. 101 

RELIC OF REV. DR. GRIFFIN. 

Rev. Mr. Stone then held up to the audience what he 
called a relic of Rev. Dr. GrRiFFiN. An arm-chair, in 
which he (Mr. Stone) had sat at the communion-table 
on the last Sabbath, and in which he had been permitted 
to sit, thus far, during the festival. 

THE DAUGHTER OF REV. DR. GRIFFIN. 

He then introduced the first baby that was baptized in 
Park Street Church, fifty years ago, a daughter of Rev. 
Dr. Griffin, — Mrs. Crawford, of Deerfield. She could 
not, said Mr. Stone, speak for herself on that occasion, but 
he thought her husband could speak for her. 

This announcement produced great sensation in the hall, 
during which Mrs. Crawford rose. She could not control 
her emotions. 

REMARKS OF REV. MR. CRAWFORD. 

Rev. Mr. Crawford, of Deerfield, then rose, and after 
much applause, said he could not express the gratification 
which he felt in standing as the representative of Dr. 
Griffin. He was gratified to receive an invitation to be 
present, and had looked forward to the occasion with very 
great interest and pleasure ; and this had increased every 
moment since he had been in the city. In alluding to the 
rise and progress of Park Street Church, he said that the 
little one had, literally, become a thousand. Many had gone 
up from the church to receive their reward, but what a 
multitude remained. 



102 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

Job said, " I would not live alway/' Dr. Griffin, when 
at the meeting of the American Board in Newark, N. J., 
said that he thanked Grod that good men might die. The 
church was the place where Grod trained up men for his 
kingdom, and where he prepared them for the church tri- 
umphant above. If that object were attained here, then 
the great object of life would be attained. While sitting 
in his seat, he could not help thinking of those who had 
gone up on high. His own church had its representatives 
above. Many persons had been aided on their way to 
heaven by the Park Street Church. Those good men who 
knew that church from its commencement, might be then 
looking down upon the scenes before them. If so, they 
must regard them with the most intense interest. 

He closed by expressing his cordial sympathy with the 
church, and his earnest desires for its prosperity. 

Mr. Stone then read the following letters. 

FROM REV. N. MURRAY, D.D., OF ELIZABETHTOWN, N. J. 
" Elizabethtown, February 21, 1859. 

" To Edwin Lamson, Esq. 

" My dear Sir : Your very kind note, inviting me to 
the semi-centennial celebration of Park Street Church, is 
at hand. Most gladly would I accept the invitation, were 
it in my power ; but the services preparatory to our com- 
munion forbid me to do so, — and you will please convey 
my regrets to your committee and people that I cannot 
mingle with them on that joyous occasion. 

" Some of my most pleasant associations are connected 



THE FESTIVAL. 103 

with the church of Park Street. Its building was amongst 
the first fruits of the revival of the doctrines of the West- 
minster Symbols in your city. Its first pastor was subse- 
quently my venerated teacher in college, Dr. Griffin, — a 
name dear to the American Church. In the seventh year of 
my ministry, I was invited to be its pastor twice, and twice 
I was compelled to decline the invitation, as much in view 
of my own incompetency for the place, as for other causes. 
Some of its men and members have made an impression 
on my mind which can never be effaced. Among these 
was Judge Hubbard, who yet stands out before me in all 
his fine proportions, as a model man and Christian. And 
I have truly rejoiced to hear of your prosperity ; and that 
through the changes and chances of fifty years you have 
been growing like the cedars of Lebanon. May old Park 
Street remain what it has always been, — a fortress for the 
defence of the truth in the midst of error, — a lighthouse 
to direct many a weary pilgrim, toiling over the sea of life, 
to a safe harbor and a quiet anchorage under the shelter 
of the Rock of Ages. 

" With the kindest regards to your pastor, committee, 
and people, I am, my dear sir, 

" Sincerely yours, N. Murray." 

FROM REV. DR. HAWES OF HARTFORD. 

"Hartford, Feb. 23, 1859. 

"Messrs. E. Lamson and T. W. Nickerson : — 

" Gentlemen : I have received your kind note, inviting me 
to be present at the semi-centennial celebration of the Park 



104 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

Street Church. I should be exceedingly happy to comply 
with your request, and participate in the services of that 
interesting occasion, but the present state of my health 
forbids the hope of enjoying that privilege. 

" 1 trust the good Lord, who has so abundantly pros- 
pered your church from the first, will be present, and make 
the occasion one of great interest and spiritual improvement 
to all who shall assemble. 

" I have some reason for feeling a peculiar interest in your 
church, having been twice invited to become its pastor. 
But the Lord provided better both for you and for me ; for 
you in sending you a better minister, and for me in keeping 
me in my place. 

" But though I can not be present with you in person, I 
shall be in spirit, and my heart prompts me to send a sen- 
timent, — not a toast, to be drank over the wine-cup, as of 
old, — which you will dispose of as you think proper. 
" Yours, in the bonds of Christian love, 

" J. Ha wes. 

" Sentiment. — -The Park Street Church, — a forlorn hope 
in a dark and trying day; victory perched on its standard, 
established on truth, and borne aloft by faith and love; 
there may it abide till all conflict with sin and error be over, 
and the church itself be absorbed in the Church of the 
First-born in heaven." 



THE FESTIVAL. 105 

FROM REV. DR. DWIGHT, OF PORTLAND. 

" Portland, Feb. 23, 1859. 

" Gentlemen : Permit me to express through yourselves 
my thanks to the Park Street Church for their ' cordial 
invitation ; to me to be present at the approaching celebra- 
tion of your fiftieth anniversary. The occasion will be one 
of deep interest, not only to the multitude there assembled, 
but also to its many absent friends who have been acquainted 
with its history, and who have rejoiced in the prosperity 
with which the Saviour has abundantly blessed it. As the 
church of which my brother was the second pastor, and the 
term of which connection was one of the happiest and most 
useful portions of his ministerial life, I need not add that 
the celebration would have a peculiar interest for myself, 
were it in my power to be present. 

" The circumstances of indisposition in my family, and 
of a late absence from Portland, which renders it necessary 
for me to be at home on the coming Sabbath, will preclude 
my acceptance of the invitation which you so kindly tender. 
Believe me, gentlemen, to be, 

" Truly yours, 

" W. T. Dwtght." 

Mr. Stone then held up several antiquated papers, one 
of which, he said, was the charge delivered by Rev. Dr. 
Codman of Dorchester, to Rev. Edward Beecher, the 
third pastor of Park Street Church. He would not read 
the charge, but he would charge Dr. Beecher to stand up 
on his feet. 



106 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

REMARKS OF REV. EDWARD BEECHER, D.D. 

Rev. Dr. Beecher said lie must first present to the 
church the message of his father. Had it not been for his 
age and feeble health, he would have been present. He 
sent his warmest expression of sympathy for the church, and 
wished him to speak of his desire to be with them on the 
anniversary occasion. 

Dr. Beecher said that there had been one thought that 
had occupied his mind since he had been present in Boston. 
He had turned over the manual of the church, and had 
looked back to its organization. The number that met in a 
private house to join the church was small. The sermon 
was preached by Rev. Dr. Morse, from the words in the 
Psalms — "Save now, I beseech thee, Lord; send now 
prosperity." He thought of that in connection with the 
gathering on the anniversary occasion, and he felt that the 
prayers of that day had been answered. When the request 
came to him to be present, he thought he could not leave 
his work in the far West; but he remembered that fifty 
years did not come round very often, and that it would be 
fifty years before there would be another occasion like the 
present, and so he concluded to come on. 

In thinking of the older persons connected with the 
earlier history of the church, he had been reminded of what 
his father said when he went to see the people of his first 
charge : " If I wish," said the old gentleman, " to see my 
old people, I must go to the graveyard." In looking round 
the church on the last Sabbath, he saw very few of the old 
people; the faces were nearly all new to him, and yet they 



THE FESTIVAL. 107 

were not unknown to him in heart. In comparing the faith 
of the projectors of Park Street Church, he was reminded 
of the faith and enterprise of the men who went to the 
West to found towns and cities. Little villages had grown 
to be large cities since he had been there. The little band 
that formed the church did not see the results that would 
follow; but there were around them the unseen laws. 
Angels saw the coming conflict, — that gathering of forces 
which it was the privilege of the men of the present day to 
appreciate. Glod had the whole enterprise marked out. 

Dr. Beecher then spoke of the four years of his father's 
ministry when the whole city was alive, — when it was as if 
the very hills were ringing with the cry of fire, — when 
there was one continued rush onward in the conflict. The 
end had not yet been seen. The stopping-point had not yet 
been reached. The men who formed the church stood as the 
representatives of principles above them; and so the church 
to-day stood as the representatives of principles above it. 
They were not half up to the thoughts of the great Word. 
Great as the results had been, they were but the beginning. 
The intensity of the conflict was to come. The church was 
as much below what it would be at the end of the next fifty 
years, as the little band was below the church of to-day. 
He closed by invoking the blessing of heaven upon the 
church, that they might apprehend, in some measure, the 
purposes and plans of Grod, and co-operate with him in his 
great work of saving men. 

After a song by the choir, Mr. Stone presented another 
yellow document, put into his hand by Judge Farrar, 



108 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

viz. a copy of the address delivered by Rev. Dr. Codman 
on the occasion of the installation of Rev. Dr. Linsley. 
He asked the audience whether they would have the doc- 
ument or the living voice. 

REMARKS OF REV. DR. LINSLEY. 

After long applause, Rev. Dr. Linsley responded. He 
had a heart to express what he desired, but no tongue. He 
had had a hearty welcome, and he expected he would; but 
he had found that the half had not been expected. He had 
met friends from all parts of the land with warm and loving 
hearts. He then indulged in some pleasing reminiscences 
of persons connected with the church in olden times. 

Their first struggle gave character to the work. He 
always wondered where Park Street Church got her dispo- 
sition to give to benevolent objects; but he knew now that 
the secret of it was to be seen in the very beginning. After 
relating a number of facts in connection with Dr. Griffin, 
he concluded by saying that those who first founded the 
church had to endure an amount of obloquy unknown in 
these later years. He would never forget the present occa- 
sion, and he said it seemed to him like the beginning of 
heaven. 

Rev. Dr. Aiken was next introduced, as the pastor whose 
labors the church had enjoyed the longest, and whose name 
was like a household word. 



THE FESTIVAL. 109 

REMARKS OF REV. DR. AIKEN. 

Dr. Aiken rose amid great applause, and expressed his 
gratitude for the hearty welcome he had received. When 
he came to Park Street Church he knew that, from the 
beginning, it had been identified with Christ's kingdom. It 
was perfectly clear that God meant that the church should 
raise his standard. It was of little consequence what became 
of individual members, — the church would live. Let that 
church, said Dr. Aiken, in which I have spent the best part 
of my life, continue to cherish an interest in the kingdom of 
Christ and identify itself with all the benevolent enterprises 
of the day. Glod had much for the church to do, and in 
the great day it would be clearly seen for what it had been 
organized. After indulging in some reminiscences, he closed 
amid applause from all parts of the house. 

The choir then sung another glee, after which Dr. 
Blagden was introduced. 

remarks of rev. dr. blagden. 
He spoke of the great doctrines of the church over which 
he was placed, which were embodied in its creed, and said 
those doctrines must not be forgotten. He rejoiced that 
they had been ever taught in Park Street, Pine Street, and 
other churches in the city. The young people wanted to 
be indoctrinated, and he thought they should. As min- 
isters, never be ashamed of the name of John Calvin. 
It had been said that the Old South Church was shivering 
in the wind. He did not believe this j and if persons would 



110 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

look up to the confession of faith of the church, they would 
find there was no cause for such a remark. 

That confession was so strong, it sometimes made him 
shiver to read it. The Old South had its advantages 
and disadvantages. It was a rich church, and had been 
called an aristocratic church j and this was one of its dis- 
advantages. He appealed with great earnestness to all the 
members of the churches to go on in their mission, and 
do more good in the future. 

Mr. Stone then said, that having heard from their rich 
and aristocratic mother, it would be pleasant to have a little 
filial greeting from the Union, or Essex Street Church, one 
of the daughters of Park Street. He regretted, however, 
that the pastor was not present. The second daughter was 
the Hanover Street, now the Bowdoin Street Church, first 
built in 1825, and rebuilt, in 1832, in Bowdoin Street. 
He wished the old man eloquent [applause] could be 
there to greet them ; but there was one who could speak 
for the church, viz : Rev. Mr. Johnson, the present supply. 

REMARKS OF REV. MR. JOHNSON. 

Mr. Johnson's remarks were very brief. He spoke of 
Bowdoin Street Church as yet alive, with good stanch 
timbers in her ship. If it had gone, sometimes, almost 
under the waves, it had gathered strength to breast and 
surmount them again. He invoked Grod's blessing upon 
the Park Street pastor, about to launch upon the wave, and 
hoped he would come back invigorated and strengthened 
in body and mind. 



THE FESTIVAL. Ill 

Dr. Beecher then delivered a message of friendship and 
good-will from his brother, Henry Ward, and said that 
his father was the author of the words, " shivering in the 
wind/' as applied to the Old South Church. 

Dr. Blagden replied pleasantly that it sounded like his 
father ; and he remembered of hearing him say, " When 
you express a truth, light it up with a metaphor ; " and he 
supposed that this was the way he used the words " shiver- 
ing in the wind." 

Mr. Stone then said, after we had two daughters, we 
then had twins, — referring to the organization of Salem 
and Pine Street churches, in September, 1827. They sent 
ten members to Pine Street, and thirteen to Salem Street. 

Mr. Dexter was then introduced. 

REMARKS OF REV. MR. DEXTER. 

Mr. Dexter said that he believed it was a fact in natural 
history, that, in a double birth, one had an unequal share 
of strength. The history of the last thirty years proved 
that Pine Street was the weaker of the twins. He believed 
that the church had been rightly named, for it had pined 
from its beginning, and had been in the woods ever since it 
was born. It had never been troubled with the disadvan- 
tages of the Old South Church. 

Mr. Dexter then spoke of the prospects of his church, 
and alluded to their intention to build, and hoped, when 
the time came, the help that was needed would come. He 
was repeatedly applauded during his remarks, especially in 
those which alluded to Mr. Stone in his anticipated voyage. 



112 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

He closed with a beautiful sentiment to the Park Street 
pastor. 

Other . remarks were made by Deacon Palmer, Deacon 
Hill, Kev. Dr. Anderson, and William T. Eustis, Esq. 
We have only room for the remarks of the latter, which 
contain much valuable information relating to Park Street 
Church. 

REMARKS OF WILLIAM T. EUSTIS, ESQ. 

Mr. Eustis commenced his speech by alluding to the 
generations of men which rapidly succeeded each other, 
and quoted the following passages of Scripture. 

" One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare 
thy mighty acts." 

" They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and 
shall sing of thy righteousness." 

He then stated that Park Street Church was organized 
February 27, 1809. The church edifice was dedicated Jan- 
uary 10, 1810 ; sermon by Dr. Edward Griffin, the 
officiating clergyman, who at that time was Professor at the 
Theological Seminary at Andover, but was regularly installed 
as pastor of Park Street Church and Society July 31, 1811. 

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- 
sions was established by the General Association of Congre- 
gational Ministers, June, 1810. About five months after 
the dedication of the Park Street Church, on the sixth of 
February, 1811, the first missionaries of the American 
Board were ordained at the Tabernacle Church, Salem. Dr. 
Griffin took part in the services on that occasion. 



THE FESTIVAL. 113 

The church has furnished eight missionaries for the 
foreign mission field, viz : four males, and four females. 
Males, — Chamberlain, Winn, H. A. Honey, and Ed- 
ward Aiken. Females, — Ellen Stetson, Mary Winn, 
Maria Grozier, E. Edwards. Also, two Secretaries of 
the Board, — one, who sustained the duties of the office 
nearly ten years, has entered into his rest, — the other, 
after having filled the office of Assistant Secretary for eight 
years, in 1832 was appointed Secretary in full, the duties 
of which oflice he still discharges with distinguished ability, 
having labored faithfully for thirty-five years. May he 
long be continued to witness the success of the work in 
which he has been so diligently engaged. 

Two Treasurers, — one of whom discharged the duties 
of the oflice about ten years, the other, after having given 
thirty-two years of the most active portion of his life to 
the service of the Board as Treasurer, voluntarily resigned 
his oflice four years since, but the Board have still the 
benefit of his valuable services as a member of the Pruden- 
tial Committee. One Secular Agent, — for many years 
engaged at the Missionary House, in contributing to the 
temporal comfort of the missionaries by attending to their 
outfits and their secular wants, as indicated from time to 
time by orders sent from their several fields of labor. 

In the latter part of the year 1811, the Foreign Mission- 
ary Society of Boston and vicinity originated in Park Street 
Church, and was formed in the house of one of its mem- 
bers. The object of this Society was to raise funds for 



114 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

the foreign mission cause. This was the leading society 
in the United States for this object. 

The monthly concert was first commenced by members 
of the Park Street Church, early in the fall of 1817. It 
was soon followed by the Old South. In June, 1818, by 
vote of the two churches, a union was agreed to be held 
in Park Street, which was established July 6, 1818. In 
January, 1820, Essex Street united with us by invitation, 
and since then other churches have been connected with 
us. 

The contributions of Park Street Church to the foreign 
missionary cause have been as follows : — 

Monthy concert $27,586 38 

Individual contributions .... 74,950 81 



$102,537 19 



After making allowance for the amount contributed by 
other churches at the monthly concert, it is fair to calculate 
that nearly $100,000 has been contributed by this church 
and society for this object. 

Press. For thirteen years this church furnished an effi- 
cient and accomplished editor of the Panoplist and 3Iis- 
sionary Herald, the latter devoted to the cause of Missions. 

The foreign mission press was first suggested and started, 
it is believed, by a member of this church; for this object 
the sum of $13,400 was raised, of which S3, 350, or one 
quarter of the amount, was contributed by a few individuals 
of this church. 



THE FESTIVAL. 115 

The Boston Recorder — believed to be among the first 
religious newspapers — ■ was published by our highly re- 
spected and venerable brother, Deacon Nathaniel Willis, 
on the fifth day of January, 1816, and has been continued 
to the present time, exerting an unabated influence in favor 
of Christian Missions. 

On the fifteenth of October, 1819, an event occurred, and 
a scene was exhibited in Park Street Church, which has 
not been surpassed for interest or importance in the history 
of missions. The Sandwich Island church, consisting of 
seventeen members, viz : Rev. Hiram Bingham, Rev. 
Asa Thurston, Daniel Chamberlain, Dr. Thomas 
Holman, Samuel Whitney, Samuel Ruggles, Elisha 
Loomis, and their wives, John Honoore, Thomas Hop- 
poo, W. Tennore, natives of the Sandwich Islands, was 
duly constituted, with religious services in the vestry, by 
Drs. Morse and Worcester, and Rev. Mr. Dwight, our 
pastor. In the evening, a sermon was preached by Rev. 
Mr. Bingham ; and on the next day another sermon was 
delivered, by the Rev. Mr. Thurston. 

The present number of members in regular standing 
in the church at the Sandwich Islands is twenty-two thou- 
sand five hundred and thirty -five, contributing annually 
more than twenty-three thousand dollars for the support of 
the gospel and religious institutions. 

The whole number that have been connected with the 
church since it was organized is not less than thirty-five 
thousand. Thus, a "little one" has become literally more 

9* 



116 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

than a thousand. Truly, " this is the Lord's doing, and 
it is marvelous in our eyes." 

Since that time various bands of missionaries have re- 
ceived their instructions in this house, numbering in the 
whole nearly two hundred persons. We may truly say 
this is a missionary house, and the ground on which we 
stand is holy. 

In the summer of 1815, the American Educational So- 
ciety was formed in Park Street Vestry, and a committee 
appointed to draft a constitution. 

In the early part of the year 1826, the idea of a national 
society for home missions was suggested at a meeting of 
friends at the house of a member of this church, which 
led to the formation of the American Home Missionary 
Society of New York, May, 1826. 

January, 1826. At the urgent request of that apostle 
of temperance, the Rev. Dr. Edwards, the first meeting 
for conference on the subject of temperance reformation, 
in Park Street Vestry, resulted in the formation of the 
American Temperance Society, and associate societies. 

In October, 1824, a movement made by a member of 
Park Street Church (Rev. Lewis Dwight), resulted in 
the formation of the Prison Discipline Society, in which 
Howardian work he labored with untiring zeal and success, 
as agent and secretary, until his death, three years since, 
having accomplished the great work of reform in the 
prisons of our own country, and also exerted an influence 
over the Christian world. 



THE FESTIVAL. 117 

There might he many other incidents of interest referred 
to in connection with Park Street Church and Society, but 
I have, in these remarks, purposed mainly to confine myself 
to Park Street Church as connected with the missionary 
cause, and thus being truly a missionary church • and I 
can not better conclude what I have said on this subject, 
than to use the words of one to whom I am principally 
indebted for the facts I have stated, which were embodied 
in a manuscript report made by him to Park Street Church, 
in 1843. I allude to the late Judge Samuel Hubbard, 
for many years a dearly beloved and highly esteemed and 
revered member of this church, till his death, in Decem- 
ber, 1847. 

" The venerable fathers of Park Street Church, of 
whom we may be permitted to name Bumstead, and 
Homes, and Homer, and J. W. Jenkins, had it in their 
hearts, when they agreed to erect this beautiful house of 
worship, to pray that it should be the way of holiness; a 
place in which the ransomed of the Lord should return and 
come to Zion with songs ; a place in which the precious 
messages of salvation should be freely communicated to 
thousands ; that it might become a church whose spirit 
should be the spirit of missions ) and though the eye of 
faith was not then opened to embrace within its vision the 
foreign fields in Asia, Africa, and the Islands of the Sea, 
nor the mind to contemplate that ' the wilderness and the 
solitary place should be glad for them, and the desert 
should rejoice and blossom as the rose,' yet, as the fair 
flower is wrapped within the swelling bud, and the limbs 



118 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

of the mighty tree lie folded in the parent nut, so the 
germ of the missionary spirit existed in the hearts of the 
founders of this chnrch j and when the Lord of Missions 
cast a ray of heavenly light upon the first missionaries, 
and the founders of the American Board, and opened to 
their admiring view the prospect of Christian enterprise 
in heathen lands, and turned their pitying gaze upon the 
dark places of the earth which are full of the habitations 
of cruelty, then the Lord also moved the spirit of these 
brethren, and they and their associates became a missionary 
church." 

We may, then, ask if the supply of missionaries, of offi- 
cers, of counsellors, and agents for the Board, — if the 
establishment and maintenance of the united monthly con- 
cert, — if the collective monthly, annual, and individual 
contributions, — if the consecration of the house to the 
reception and ordination of missionaries, — if family hos- 
pitality and personal kindness to those servants of Christ, 
— if perseverance in these things from year to year, — if 
the combinations of these constituents are the elements 
of the missionary enterprise, — if these are the measures 
the Lord of Missions points out and approves, — then the 
church in Park Street, with humility ', but with consistency, 
may claim the name and honor of a missionary church. 

And let us animate our hearts with the hope that in 
days to come, when the Sandwich Island churches shall 
teach their children the names of Bingham, and Thurs- 
ton, and Chamberlain, and Coan, and Worcester, 
and EvABTS, and shall tune their voices to sing the praise.- 



THE FESTIVAL. 119 

of hini who redeemed them, in that noble anthem, " Head 
of the Church Triumphant," — when, from age to age, 
they shall trace their origin as a Christian people to the 
far distant shore of America, — that then also shall the 
church in Park Street, — the place of their birth, — be 
sounded out in harmonious numbers, and its hallowed walls 
be held in everlasting remembrance. 

The exercises of the afternoon were closed at half past 
five o'clock. 



THE EVENING. 

The company reassembled at half past seven o'clock, in 
Music Hall. After some time spent in social conversation 
and promenade, Rev. Mr. Stone called the audience to 
order. 

Deacon Lamson read some extracts from the diaries of 
members of Park Street Church, which we should be 
glad to publish, if we could find room. 

After a few remarks by Rev. Mr. Eustis, of New Haven, 
letters were read from different persons, some of which we 
give. 

LETTER FROM PROF. SHEDD. 

"Andover, February 24, 1859. 
" Gentlemen : I have received your note of February 
16, conveying the vote of the Park Street Church, inviting 



120 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

me to be present at the coming celebration of the fiftieth 
anniversary of their foundation. I regret extremely that 
my engagements will prevent me from accepting this invi- 
tation. Please to express my sincere thanks for this 
courtesy, and my hearty wishes for a happy and profitable 
reunion of the widely scattered membership of a church, 
so closely identified as that of Park Street, with the inter- 
ests of evangelical Christianity in both the past and the 
present. 

" With high respect, I am 

" Yours very truly, 

"W. G. T. Shedd." 

LETTER FROM PROF. STOWE. 
" Theological Seminary, Andover, Feb. 26, 1859. 

" Pear Brethren : I am very much obliged to you for 
your kind invitation extended to me to be present at the 
semi-centennial anniversary of the formation of the Park 
Street Church in Boston. 

" Though I was very young fifty years ago, I well remem- 
ber the simplicity of faith and the warmth of love which 
characterized those who took the lead in that great effort, 
and I well remember, too, the bitter hostility and crushing 
obloquy against which they had to struggle. All the world 
was against them, but God was with them; they fought 
a good fight, and Christ gave them the victory. 

" I very much fear that a violent cold, under which I 
am now laboring, will deprive me of the pleasure and 
privilege of being with you in bodily presence ; but my 



THE FESTIVAL. 121 

spirit surely will sympathize and rejoice with yours on 
that occasion. 

" Very truly yours, 

"C. E. Stowe." 

LETTER FROM REV. DR. JENKS. 

" Crescent Place, Feb. 26, 1859. 

" My dear Sir : I have received from you the committee's 
kind invitation of the 16th inst., to attend the semi-centen- 
nial celebration of Park Street Church and Society, and 
am very grateful for it. 

" But, with much regret, I am obliged to state that it will 
be out of my power, however strong my desire, to attend it; 
my painful lameness still continuing, and disabling me from 
being abroad. 

" I am sorry for this disappointment, especially, because, 
although I was never a regular member of Park Street 
Church, having gone down to Maine in 1805, and not 
returning till the close of 1817, I was yet acquainted with 
most of the founders, only a few of whom, comparatively, 
are now living; and have ever felt a deep interest in the 
success of their very important, highly consequential, and 
signally blest enterprise. In this spiritual and temporal 
prosperity I sincerely rejoice, and pray that the whole body 
may ever enjoy the good will of ' Him who dwelt in the 
bush/ and the continual presence and blessing of the 
Holy Spirit. 

" Though not myself a personal member of the church, 
as I have said, yet my family was permitted the privilege 



122 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



at the Seamen's Meeting, from its commencement in 1818, 
to the formation of the church under my care in Green 
Street, and the erection of its house of worship, — a priv- 
ilege for which I have ever been grateful. 

" Repeating my earnest desire and prayer, that the meet- 
ing and all its accompaniments may receive the approbation 
and blessing of ' Him who is over all things to his church,' 
and author of all its vitality, I remain, dear sir, with affec- 
tionate respect, and in the best bonds, 

" Your, and his people's servant in the gospel, 

" Wm. Jenks." 

REMARKS OF REV. DR. ADAMS. 

Dr. Adams, of Essex Street Church, was then called 
out. He said he should have been present in the after- 
noon, had not parochial duties absolutely prevented. He 
made a neat allusion to Park Street steeple, as ten feet 
higher than the State House, as illustrating a beautiful 
truth. It was the Aaron of the commonwealth standing 
beside the Moses of the state. The significant truth was 
that the gospel soared over the law. He hoped it might 
be always so. 

After music by the choir, Rev. Mr. Kellogg, of the 
Seamen's Bethel, made some capital remarks, which brought 
down the house. He hoped Mr. Stone would come home 
copper-fastened, and coppered up to the bends, ready for 
his work again. 

A part of Mr. Frost's choir then came down to the 



THE FESTIVAL. 123 

platform, and sung, with great effect, a piece entitled 
" Speed Away," designed especially for Mr. Stone's bene- 
fit. It was loudly applauded. 

PRESENTATION TO MR. STONE. 

After a little respite for promenading, Benjamin Cal- 
lender, Esq. stepped forward upon the platform, and 
presented Rev. Mr. Stone with a draft on Baring 
Brothers & Co., London, for two thousand dollars, and 
a policy of life insurance for which seventy-two dollars 
and fifty-two cents had been paid. This was contributed 
by the pew-holders of the parish, and was given with the 
greatest cheerfulness, and with scarcely any trouble of 
collecting. The presentation was accompanied by the fol- 
lowing speech. 

REMARKS OF MR. CALLENDER. 

" Mr. Stone : It was my pleasure to be on the com- 
mittee to communicate to you the unanimous vote of the 
proprietors of Park Street Church, tendering to you a vaca- 
tion of six months, at such time during the present year 
as may be agreeable and convenient to yourself. 

"It is now very generally known that you have accepted 
that offer; also that you intend visiting the old world, and 
to leave New York, in the steamship Africa, on the second 
proximo, for Liverpool. 

" Again the pleasant duty devolves on me of presenting 
to you, in the names of those attached to the paper I hold 
in my hand, the necessary funds to defray the expense of 
10 



1 24 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

your intended tour, as a slight token of their regard and 
affection ; and I know it will be as gratifying to you in 
receiving it, as it is to me to be the medium through 
which it is offered, to know it comes from cheerful givers, 
— it is a voluntary freewill offering from the heart. 

"Allow me to express the hope that your journey may 
be pleasant and prosperous, that your fondest anticipations 
may be fully realized, and that in due time you may return, 
with renewed health and strength, to resume the important 
duties of your profession as an ambassador of God." 

REV. MR. STONE'S REMARKS. 

Mr. Stone replied in his happiest manner, taking occa- 
sion to remark that he was not surprised at the gift, for 
it was just like his people. Xo such act of theirs could 
take him by surprise. He also said that he did not go 
abroad because he was in ill health. He had no complaint, 
chronic or otherwise. He was somewhat weary and wanted 
rest. It had been a desire and dream of his life to visit 
the old world, and he had always said that, if he went, 
he should go when he was buoyant and vigorous. He 
would not say parting words. He could never part from 
his people, — no, not for a day, nor an hour. He would 
carry them with him, and keep the hope, in peril and in 
calm, that they would dwell together for ever. 

We had full notes of Mr. Stone's remarks, but we are 
obliged to make only the above meager abstract. 

There was a general shaking of hands with Mr. Stone 
after this, and at ten o'clock the company dispersed, all 



THE FESTIVAL. 125 

feeling that the day had been one of unusual enjoyment, 
without any thing to mar the pleasure from beginning 
to end. 



To the correspondence already introduced, as read 
in connection with the history of the successive 
pastorates of the church, is added this greeting of 
one of her son?, now exercising the ministry of the 
word. 

LETTER FROM DR. RAY PALMER. 

" Albany, February 22, 1859. 
" My dear Sir : I greatly regret that my engagements 
will not allow me to unite with the members of Park 
Street Church, the present and the past, in the celebration 
of its fiftieth anniversary. Your kind letter inviting me 
to this, affected me not a little by its personal allusions, 
and awakened many recollections. It was in the autumn 
of 1821, — eight-and-thirty years ago, — that I became a 
regular attendant at Park Street. The interior of that 
noble sanctuary as it then was, and the audience as it then 
appeared, are completely daguerreotyped upon my memory. 
The beloved and honored Dwight, in the freshness of his 
manly person, and the vigor of his powers, spoke words 
of earnestness and unction from the pulpit. Before him 
sat an audience, which, by its size and character, might 
well inspire the preacher, so far as any human inspiration 



126 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

could avail. Evarts, Hubbard. Homer, Homes, Bum- 
stead, Willis, Odiorxe, Proctor, Hill, and others, 
a long array of faces, I see as then they looked. A few 
still linger with us, but far the greater number of the 
prominent men in that assembly, including the gifted 
pastor, are now, it is not to be doubted, in the general 
assembly and church of the first-born in heaven. 

" For about two years I sat in those heavenly places ; 
and those years covered the period of that remarkable 
revival by which such an impulse was given to evangelical 
religion in the midst of prevailing error. Of that Zion 
it shall eternally be said, that this and that man were born 
there. There, I trust, the divine life was begun within 
my soul. There I entered into the bonds of the covenant, 
giving myself publicly to Christ ; and as I recall now some 
of those first seasons of the communion of saints around 
the Saviour's table, they seem to have been earnests of 
the fellowship of the perfect church above. I was but a 
child in years, — literally the least of all the saints, — when 
I united with the church ; and I have never ceased to 
remember gratefully the condescension of the pastor, and 
the kindness of all towards me, by which I was upheld 
amidst many temptations. In a word, that I am a Chris- 
tian and a minister, I owe, under God, in no small measure, 
to influences connected with the Park Street Church. She 
is, indeed, the mother of us all. As such, she is worthy 
of all love and honor. May she still bring forth fruit in 
old age, and be rich in blessings for generations yet to 



THE FESTIVAL. 127 

" Be pleased, my dear sir, to convey my sincere regret 
that I must deny myself the pleasure of being with you, 
and the assurance of my enduring interest in the church. 
May God's abundant blessing rest on its present honored 
pastor, and on all its present members ! 

" I am, my dear sir, with Christian affection, 
" Very truly yours, 

" Ray Palmer. 
" To Peter Hobart, Jr. Esq." 



\hhnt i&Mt\. 



HISTORIC SKETCH 



OF THE 



PARK STREET CHURCH. 



CHIEFLY FKOM COPIOUS STATEMENTS PREPARED BY DEACON 

NATHANIEL WILLIS, THE LATE JUDGE SAMUEL 

HUBBARD, AND PETER HOBART, JR. 



m 



^HE commencement of the present century 
found the congregational churches of this 
1L2J C1 ty * n a s^e of deep spiritual declension. 
Y The piety, fidelity, and spirituality of the 
mass of their members were flickering like the light 
of a dying lamp. The Christianity of the day re- 
tained in its external forms and aspect much that 
was venerable and conservative, but its life and 
power were gone ; the real, throbbing, earnest soul 
of it was stifled and palsied. The voice of the 
pulpit enforced, not without strength and cogency, 
the decencies, charities, and virtues of a high-toned 
"morality, but seldom echoed the thunders of a vio- 



132 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

lated law. or the melting accents of Calvary. There 
were no revivals quickening the people of God. 
awakening and converting the impenitent. There 
were no associations in the midst of us to print and 
scatter tracts, to distribute Bibles, to undertake the 
conquest of the heathen world for Christ, The 
only religious meetings of the week were on the 
Sabbath. There was no evening lecture, no altar 
of social prayer, no intercessions in concert for the 
coming of the kingdom, no schools for the religious 
education of the young, no weekly religious peri- 
odicals, discussing earnestly the signs of the times, 
the demands of the age, great questions of faith and 
practice, or giving tidings of refreshing visits of the 
Spirit abroad, and thus quickening the sympathies 
and animating the activities of Christians at home. 
Something of this dullness and deadness in the 
churches was doubtless a legacy from the war of 
the Revolution. The heroic part which this young 
metropolis acted in that great struggle, the sieges 
and distresses she endured, the sacrifices she made 
in the common cause are matters of history, familiar 
to every American school-boy. Her walls and strands 
battered now by friendly, now by hostile cannon, — 
the British army quartered for months upon her 
citizens, — the bights around her crowned by en- 
trenchments and blazing with watch-fires and artii- 



HISTORIC SKETCH. 133 

lery, opposed and insulted by an insolent and 
dissolute enemy in her own streets, one of her 
sanctuaries desecrated to serve the purpose of a 
riding-school and pistol-gallery for cavalry officers, — 
another demolished and burned for firewood, the 
arts of peace interrupted ; the rule of magistracies 
and civil tribunals set aside for the stern arbitra- 
ments of martial law, — such a history left not only 
physical but moral effects behind, from which it 
took long to recover. In the demoralizing influences 
of this, so recent scourge, the secret of the low 
estate of the churches is partially disclosed. 

But there was yet another cause, not then so 
clearly defined, but, in the light of subsequent his- 
tories, more distinctly discerned, that contributed 
powerfully to the disastrous result. A wide doc- 
trinal defection had extended from pulpit to pulpit, 
and from mind to mind, till, with a large majority 
of the worshipers in churches of our order, some of 
the prime articles in their formulas of faith, first, 
that grand central doctrine of a divine and atoning 
Saviour, and- the other and dependent doctrines 
Avere discarded and outlawed. The substituted 
gospel, earnest enough in the cause of human 
amelioration, philanthropic and outspoken on the 
subject of social and personal wrongs and great 
public evils, broke no spiritual slumbers, rolled no 



134 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

shocks of alarm against the careless, unrenewed 
heart ; did not feed the sonl of the humble believer, 
and healed slightly the hurt of man's mortal dis- 
ease. Thus every church of the connection, of 
which w^e speak, with but a solitary exception, still 
keeping its time-honored name of " Old South," 
" faithful found among the faithless," had tacitly or 
avowedly fallen away from " the purity of the faith 
once delivered," as hitherto held in their " con- 
fessions." 

It was time for Providence to work. The hearts 
of a little band of brethren, in the church just 
named, Avere burdened with the desolations of Zion. 
The visit of G-od's Spirit to some of the Baptist 
churches of the city, farther quickened and encour- 
aged them. They desired to unite with these more 
revived brethren and churches in a weekly evening- 
lecture. A vote of the church was obtained in favor 
of the measure. But it was not to be carried into 
effect. A powerful opposition arose on the part of 
the Society, with which a few members of the 
church also made common cause, and the hopeful 
movement was crushed in the bud. Defeated and 
disappointed in this direction, but with no thought 
of giving way to the prevalent influences, eight 
of the brethren struggling thus for a higher type 
of piety, and one more soon after added to their 



HISTORIC SKETCH. 135 

ranks, formed themselves into a society for mutual 
religious improvement. This society held its weekly 
meetings, frequently enjoying the ministrations of 
the Rev. Dr. Eckly, the pastor of the Old South, 
and kept the evangelic flame alive in their own 
hearts and in the community. Such, however, was 
the lack of courage and confidence with private 
Christians of the time, and such the meager growth 
of Christian graces and accomplishments, that for 
several weeks no member of this little association 
could lead the devotions of his brethren in audible 
prayer in their meetings. 

Parallel with this movement there was also a 
little circle of pious ladies, who held stated meet- 
ings for prayer, to lament over the degeneracy of 
Grod's covenanted ones, and beseech the return of 
his gracious presence. 

In these days, the idea of building a new house 
of worship, and forming a new organization in sym- 
pathy with their views, was frequently in the thought 
of these brethren, though rather as a thing fervently 
desired than an enterprise actually embarked in. It 
was a good seed, germinating and nurtured under 
the genial influences of praying and believing hearts, 
till the fullness of time should come. Thus passed 
the first eight years of the century. In the sum- 
mer of the year 1808 the evangelic element received 



136 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

a new impulse and fresh vigor from the visit and 
labors of a southern clergyman, Rev. Dr. Kollock, 
of Savannah, Georgia. He came in the fullness 
of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. " He 
spoke," says one who heard him, " with irresistible 
energy and power. Unaccustomed as we were to 
hear any thing moving, his appeals came upon us 
like thunder. Crowds hung upon his lips, and 
confessed the power of earnest truth, earnestly 
preached." 

And now the ripened thought of the little praying 
band was ready for utterance, — the conception for 
execution. Had Ave such a man, they said in their 
communing together, to go in and out before us, 
to deliver the messages of the gospel, drooping 
Zion should be revived and the city shaken from 
its trance. 

Conference was had with the southern Doctor, 
and the hearts of those who waited for the conso- 
lation of Israel were cheered by the assurance he 
gave, that if they would build a house for God and 
form a church, he would become their pastor. By 
such histories and agencies did the great Head of 
the church prepare the way for the rearing of 
another fortress in Zion, that should stand for the 
defence of evangelic truth, and be a rallying-point 
in the great strife against sin and error, till, in all 



HISTORIC SKETCH. 137 

this holy war, there shall be left unsubdued no 
enemy of the cross of Christ. 

As to the steps, by which the enterprise was 
commenced, a brief record must suffice. The few 
whose hearts were enlisted in it felt the magnitude 
and difficulty of the undertaking. The churches, 
from which they might have expected the most as- 
sistance, were most opposed to their object. Their 
own numbers were small. Large expenditures were 
required at the very outset. Whither to turn for 
help or even sympathy they knew not. But they 
had settled it in their souls and before God that 
the thing should be done. From the commence- 
ment, amid all their embarrassments and disappoint- 
ments they never despaired of success, — they never 
grew faint of heart. 

In a short time they had forty thousand dollars 
pledged for their work, a lot of land purchased 
for half that sum, and felt that they were war- 
ranted in proceeding to organize themselves into 
a church of Christ. A confession of faith was 
reported and adopted, the identical confession to 
which we now subscribe, and five churches of 
the city and vicinity were invited to meet in coun- 
cil and assist in the organization. These were 
the Old South and Federal Street, in Boston, the 
church in Charlestown, the church in Cambridge, 
11 



138 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

and the church in Dorchester. The two churches 
in the city declined the invitation to act on the 
organizing council. The others met by their pas- 
tors and delegates, Rev. Dr. Morse, of Charles- 
town, Rev. Dr. Holmes, of Cambridge, and Rev. Mr. 
Codman, of Dorchester, with lay brethren of good 
repute, at the house of Win. Thurston, on Beacon 
Hill, on the 27th of February, 1809, and came to 
the following result: — 

The council, after having deliberately weighed 
this important subject, and seeing no reason why 
the request in the letter missive should not be 
granted, — Toted, unanimously, that we are satisfied 
with the proceedings of the brethren about to be 
formed into a Congregational Church, in the town 
of Boston, and are ready cheerfully to assist in this 
organization. The exercises of the occasion were 
introduced with prayer by Rev. Dr. Morse. The 
fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles was 
then read, and, after singing, an appropriate dis- 
course was delivered by Rev. Dr. Morse, from 
Psalm cxviii. verse 25, " Save now, I beseech thee, 
Lord, Lord I beseech thee send prosperity." 
The articles of faith and government were then 
read by the scribe, and signed in the presence of 
the council, by nine brethren and twelve sisters. 
They were then declared duly organized, and Rev. 



HISTORIC SKETCH. 139 

Mr. Codman expressed to them the fellowship of the 
churches. The same evening, before the council dis- 
solved, five members were added, by profession, to 
the newly formed fraternity. 

Immediately upon its organization, the church 
voted to extend a unanimous call to Rev. Dr. Kol- 
lock, to become their pastor ; also to invite Dr. 
Griffin, of Newark, professor elect at Andover, to 
officiate once on each Sabbath in connection with 
the former. Dr. Griffin at once signified his willing- 
ness to conclude such an arrangement. Meanwhile 
the matter of building was pushed diligently for- 
ward. On the 1st of May, 1809, the corner-stone of 
this house was laid, with appropriate ceremonies, in 
which Rev. Drs. Holmes and Morse again assisted. 
In June, the church were cheered by the arrival of 
Dr. Griffin, and aided by his counsel, and heard his 
voice occasionally in the ministration of the gospel, 
though they had not yet set up for themselves the 
ordinances of public worship. But now their faith 
and constancy were to be severely tried. In Sep- 
tember, a communication was received from Dr. 
Kollock, declining their call. The Presbytery would 
not dismiss him. A remonstrance signed by three 
thousand persons was presented against his leaving 
his post at Savannah. Neighboring ministers and 
laymen, including those of other denominations, 



140 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

threw their arms around him and would not suffer 
him to depart. This was a terrible shock to the 
high hopes of the little church in Boston. It 
almost threatened their very existence. Many of 
the subscribers to the enterprise withdrew their 
names, so great was the disappointment and loss 
of interest. Still, the brethren could not go back. 
Their bark was on the sea, the voyage was before 
them : come storm or calm, fair winds or foul, they 
must keep their course. A unanimous call was 
extended to Dr. Griffin, to become the pastor. It 
was declined. Calls were subsequently presented 
to Rev. Dr. Nott, President of Union College, Rev. 
Dr. Romeyn, of New York, and Rev. Gardner 
Spring, of Andover, and a second time to Dr. Nott, 
but all without success. 

Meantime, the house of worship was completed, 
at a cost altogether of over seventy thousand dol- 
lars ; and on the tenth of January, 1810, the dedi- 
cation sermon was preached by Rev. Dr. Griffin. 
The summer and autumn following were occupied 
in urging and reurging the fruitless calls just men- 
tioned. Another year passed away, and still the 
little flock were shepherdless. February 1, 1811. 
the church again tendered the pastoral office over 
them to Dr. Grifftn, after much conference, and 
another determined and self-denying effort of " the 



HISTORIC SKETCH. 141 

subscribers," in which thirty thousand dollars were 
raised to pay their debt, and place their enterprise 
on a safe pecuniary footing. 

On the first of May, 1811, Dr. Griffin accepted 
the call, and on the thirty-first of July he was duly 
installed. The installing council met in the land 
office, in the new State House. The public exer- 
cises at the church were as follows : — 

Introductory Prayer, by Rev. Dr. Morse, of Charlestown. 
Sermon, by Eev. Mr. Worcester, of Salem. 
Consecrating Prayer, by Rev. Dr. Holmes, of Cambridge. 
Charge, by Rev. Mr. Greenough, of Newton. 
Right Hand of Fellowship, by Rev. Mr. Homer, also of 

Newton. 
Concluding Prayer, by Rev. Mr. Huntington, of Old South. 

Thus, at length, after a weary interval of two 
years and five months, after many disheartening 
failures and reverses, the long sickness of hope 
deferred was relieved, the little band was equipped 
and officered for service, and good auguries and 
favoring providences seemed to cheer them on their 
way. 

We pass now to note the later progress and 
fruits of the enterprise of which we have thus seen 
the beginnings. 

And, first, the changes in the pastoral office. 



142 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

These have been frequent. The ministry of Dr. 
Griffin continued three years and nine months. 
He was succeeded by Rev. Sereno E. Dwight, who 
was ordained September 3, 1817, and dismissed 
April 10, 1826, after a ministry of eight years and 
five months. Rev. Edward Beecher was ordained 
as pastor in December of the same year, and exer- 
cised his ministry for three years and ten months. 
After an interval of two years, Rev. J. H. Linsley 
was installed, December 5, 1832, and continued in 
office two years and ten months. After another 
interval of eighteen months, Rev. Silas Aiken was 
installed on the twenty-second of March, 1837, and 
dismissed the twelfth of July, 1848, having held office 
eleven and a quarter years, longer by some years 
than any of his predecessors. The present pastor 
was installed January 25, 1849. 

2. The accessions to the church since its organ- 
ization to the present time, have been as follows : — 



Five on the day of organization, makii 

original members . 
Before the installation of Dr. Griffin 
During his ministry 
In the interval previous to the settlement of Mr 

DwiGHT 

During Mr. Dwight's ministry 

In the interval following his dismission 



with the 






26 




18 




93 


t of Mr. 






44 




321 




20 



HISTORIC SKETCH. 



143 



During Mr. Beecher's ministry . 


173 


In the interval following .... 


39 


During Mr. Linsley's ministry 


99 


In the interval 


10 


During Mr. Aiken's ministry 


425 


In the interval subsequent .... 


3 


Since the settlement of the present pastor . 


681 


In all, counting the original members, 


. 1,952 



3. The views of this church in respect to the 
policy of church extension in the city, have always 
been of a liberal and generous tone. 

In 1819 ; the Essex Street Church was formed ; 
and after their division, in 1822, Park Street sent 
eight members to strengthen the hands of a feeble 
minority. 

In 1825, the Hanover Street Church, now the 
Bowdoin Street, was formed, and Park Street sent 
twenty -two members to their help. Pine Street 
and Salem churches were organized in 1827, and 
Park Street offered another contribution of twenty- 
one members. At the original organization of the 
Central Church, in 1835 ; twelve more were cordially 
dismissed from our ranks. In 1842, the Mount 
Vernon Church was organized, and again the vital 
strength of this church was drawn upon. Park 
Street stands in the midst of these churches, like 
a venerable mother surrounded by her foster chil- 



144 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

dren, looking around upon them with a maternal 
affection and pride, and cherished in their hearts, 
as we rejoice to know, with all the ardor and 
strength of filial love. 

4. Revivals. The first general and powerful re- 
vival of religion in the history of the church, oc- 
curred in the city in 1823, commencing in Park 
Street ; and, as the fruits of it, three hundred and 
forty-eight converts were added to the churches in 
the city and vicinity, and Hanover Street Church 
was built as an expression of gratitude to God. 

Another outpouring of the Spirit followed, in 
1826 and 1827, which resulted in the establishment 
of two new evangelical churches, Pine Street and 
Salem, and the addition to this church of one hun- 
dred members. 

In 1831 and 1832, the Spirit returned again with 
power, and the new song was loud in the midst of 
the churches. 

In the three years commencing with 1840, a 
blessed and powerful work of grace was carried 
forward in this church, during which time two hun- 
dred and fifty converts were received to our com- 
munion. 

Another season of refreshing was enjoyed in 1849 
and 1850. 

In the years 1857 and 1858, under the labors of 



HISTORIC SKETCH. 145 

Rev. Charles G. Finney and Mrs. Finney, a deep 
and searching work of the Spirit was witnessed, in 
which many professors of religion renewed their 
experience and their hope, and probably not less 
than six hundred souls were converted, of whom 
about two hundred united with this church. 

The connection of this church with the movements 
of modern Christian benevolence, and especially with 
the cause of foreign missions, has already been 
clearly set forth in another page of this volume. 
To this statement it may be added, that the annual 
meeting of prayer for the descent of the Holy Spirit 
upon the colleges of the land, was at first and for 
some time a private meeting with this church, till 
it was proposed by a member that the effort should 
be made to commend the day to more general ob- 
servance, and the concert of prayer for this object 
now kept in both hemispheres is the issue of that 
obscure beginning. 

In all this history, we find a pledge of God's 
faithfulness for the days to come ! 



146 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



PARK STREET MEETING-HOUSE. 



<S§- 



HE following facts relating to the Park Street 
^ Meeting-house were furnished, at the request 
Qy±5 of one of the deacons of the church, by Dr. 
eJ N. B. Shurtleff, and published in the Bos- 
ton Journal. 



For some time previous to the fall of the year 1808, 
the religious sentiment having been somewhat extraordi- 
narily aroused in Boston by the eloquent and impassioned 
preaching of Rev. Henry Kollock, of Savannah, a dis- 
tinguished Doctor in Divinity, it was considered expedient 
and practicable that there should be gathered in the town 
another church, which should be established especially with 
a view of promoting the system of theology generally denom- 
inated " Evangelical " by its adherents, in order to dis- 
tinguish it from others which had of late become very 
fascinating and popular, and which had grievously fallen 
off in strictness as to the observance of the precepts and 
practices of the early New England Christians. Twelve 
congregational churches only had been formed previous to 
this time ; and of these, two had been united together soon 
after the close of the war of the Revolution, under the late 
Dr. Latiirop, — the place of worship of the Second Church 



HISTORIC SKETCH. 147 

having been demolished by the British during the siege 
of Boston, and the Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton, pastor 
of the Fourth Church, having died not long after the evac- 
uation of the town took place ; two others, which had 
severally been under the charge of Rev. Samuel Mather 
and Rev. Andrew Cro swell, had altogether decayed, 
and their houses of worship fallen to another sect, the 
Universalists. The youngest of the nine remaining churches 
had been gathered about seventy-four years, and with all 
of the other eight, excepting the Old South, which even 
wavered, had passed to Unitarianism. While Congregation- 
alism exhibited such a state of things, the Baptists stood 
firm, and kept alive the evangelical faith, and through 
the instrumentality of such shining lights as Stillman and 
Baldwin, with the occasional assistance of such preachers 
as Kollock, brought about the sentiment which exhibited 
itself so strongly among a few at that time. 

On account of this state of religious matters, and because 
of the influx into Boston of many pious people from the 
neighboring counties and States, the measure of establishing 
a new church became not only necessary but imperative ; 
and near the close of the year 1808, active exertions were 
commenced by a few enterprising and religious persons for 
gathering a new church and for obtaining subscriptions, 
and making collections of money in order to defray the 
expenses of erecting a new building for a place of worship 
on the Lord's day, and for such other religious meetings 
as might be convened upon the secular days of the week. 
More than usual interest was taken in the undertaking, from 



148 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

the belief that Dr. Kollock, to whose ministrations they 
had listened with so much profit and pleasure, would be 
able to relinquish his pastoral charge in Savannah, and 
remove to Boston. But these hopes were never realized, 
the society in Savannah being unwilling to part with their 
much esteemed pastor, and there being prevalent fears that 
the severe and rigorous winters of the North would not agree 
with his constitution, which had already been impaired, 
notwithstanding residence in the genial and more temperate 
climate of the South. 

On Monday, the twenty-seventh of February, 1809, the 
church was regularly formed by an ecclesiastical council, 
held at the house of William Thurston, Esq., an attor- 
ney of considerable note, and there the first religious exer- 
cises of the new church were held. Not a few of the older 
inhabitants of the city remember well the lofty mansion of 
this gentleman, as it presented itself to the sight of all, in 
the days of its magnificence, from its towering eminence 
upon the summit of the once high hill of Bowdoin Street, 
— for even in those days the southerly slope of the street 
which now entirely bears that name was so called, although 
the northerly portion, falling off towards Cambridge Street, 
still retained the name of Middlecot, in honor of the 
ancient possessor of the land out of which it was laid, — 
and many undoubtedly will never forget the same building, 
shorn of its pristine glory, standing upon the high preci- 
pice formed by the removal of the greater part of the soil 
of the same hill, overtopping the chimneys of the neigh- 
boring houses. 



HISTORIC SKETCH. 149 

As might naturally be supposed, a central position was 
sought for, the population of the more southerly and west- 
erly portions of the town being at that time largely on the 
increase. The old building, which had been erected in 
the town's necessity for a granary, was rapidly falling into 
decay and disuse, and thus a spot was opportunely offered 
which, of all others, seemed most desirable on account of 
its eligible situation, being on one of the principal avenues 
of the town, and having an uninterrupted chance of light 
on three of its sides. This site, which was readily selected 
and soon purchased, presented a southeasterly front of 
eighty feet upon the main street, then known as Common 
Street, and now as Tremont Street; on the southwest, it 
faced the Common, and the new mall, one hundred and 
eighteen feet ; and on the northeast it overlooked the middle 
burying-ground, often spoken of as the Common Burying- 
Grround in the olden times, but now known familiarly to all 
as the Granary Burial-Grround, and in which rest the ashes 
of many of the honored fathers of the town. What better 
position could be had for the new meeting-house ? It was 
exactly in the centre of the peninsula ; its front would be 
accessible from a street of the most ample dimensions; on 
one side there would be a view of the most agreeable 
character ; and on the other, constant monitors of the 
short duration of earthly life, and the surety of an eternal 
departure from the endearments of this world. In the 
language of the day, " for salubrity of air, beauties of pros- 
pect, and general accommodations, there was no situation 
of equal extent in the capital that exceeded the premises," 

12 



150 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

The place itself was not entirely destitute of historical 
interest. In the earlier days of the town, it was part of 
the now contiguous burial-ground, and was nearly at the 
extreme limits of the settlements, joining upon the Common. 
As time wore on, a street was laid out on the southwesterly 
side of the lot, extending to the Beacon or Sentry Hill, 
which took the name of Centry (or Sentry) Street. Then, 
when the need came, a building eighty feet by thirty feet, 
for a public granary, was erected on the end fronting on the 
principal street. This was constructed of wood, with oaken 
timbers, and was intended to hold about twelve thousand 
bushels of grain, annually purchased and stored by the 
agents of the town, and sold at a small advance to those 
whose exigencies required such a consideration. The old 
and gloomy looking building, used in its latter days as an 
inspection office for pot and pearl ashes, and also for nails, 
and finally as a mart for second-hand furniture, has not 
entirely passed from remembrance. It stood in its lot until 
the year 1809, when it was taken down to give place 
to the meeting-house. 

Further up on the street were large brick buildings, 
called the Almshouse and the Workhouse, and a smaller 
one, of the same material, called the Bridewell, for disor- 
derly and insane persons. The Almshouse, which stood 
on the corner of Beacon Street, was erected in the year 
1686, and was two-storied, with a gambrel roof and pro- 
jecting gable ; to this, in a subsequent year, was added 
a wing. Its use was confined to the aged and infirm poor. 
The Workhouse, a somewhat larger structure, about one 



HISTORIC SKETCH. 151 

hundred and twelve feet in length, with gables, and also 
two-storied, was built in the year 1738, and was exclusively 
appropriated to the vagrant, idle, and dissolute of the town. 
The Almshouse and Bridewell were both standing when 
Bonner published his plan of the town, in 1722, and, to- 
gether with the Workhouse, were in use until the comple- 
tion of the Almshouse that was erected at Barton's Point, 
on Leverett Street, and which was opened for occupancy 
at the close of the year 1800. Of course, the buildings 
for the poor and dissolute were not on the site selected 
for the meeting-house, but on the adjoining lot of land, 
which extended to the corner of Beacon Street, near the 
New State House, as the capitol was then generally styled. 
A little more than sixty years ago, the Sentry Street of 
our fathers did not present so inviting an appearance as 
does the Park Street of our own day. The old dingy 
buildings and the broken fences have disappeared, and 
stately houses have succeeded in their places. No more 
will the staid townsman nor the jocund youth, proceeding 
to the Common in wonted manner on Election and Inde- 
pendence days, be interrupted by the diminutive hands 
thrust through the holes in the old Almshouse fences, or 
stretched from beneath the decaying gates, and by the small 
and forlorn voices of the children of the destitute inmates, 
entreating for money ; nor will the cries of the wretched poor 
in those miserable habitations be heard calling for bread, 
which oftentimes the town had not to give. Those days 
are passed, and one would almost desire, when reading the 
record of those times, that the remembrance of them was 



152 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

gone also. But a great lesson of charity has gone with 
them ; for how many of the benefactors of the town made 
their first essay in almsgiving when they unconsciously 
dropped their little coin into those outstretched hands ? 

In the year 1795, the fathers of the town rightfully 
determined that such things as the then existing poor- 
houses should no longer be a reproach to them. They 
resolved to sell those estates which were in such pitiful con- 
dition and to purchase a more commodious place near Bar- 
ton's Point, where more comfortable and capacious buildings 
should be erected for their destitute and sick. The deter- 
mination was accomplished very soon after the resolve, and 
Col. Thomas Dawes, an honored and enterprising citizen, 
who had sustained in an eminently successful manner all the 
offices which his fellow-townsmen could give him. Samuel 
Brown, a merchant of much wealth and note, and pos- 
sessed of great public spirit, and Judge George Richards 
Minot, one of the distinguished historians of Massachusetts, 
had full powers granted them by the town to carry out 
these intentions, and well they performed their duty. 

On the ninth day of November, of the year 1795, the 
Granary lot was sold at public auction to the highest bidder, 
a noted person of that day ; and it may appear to some 
a curious fact that, on that occasion, about nine thousand 
four hundred and forty square feet of land, situated in the 
center of the town, brought only the sum of eight thousand 
three hundred and sixty-six dollars and sixty-six cents, 
a small fraction over eighty-eight cents a foot. From 
General Henry Jackson, the title of the land passed into 



HISTORIC SKETCH. 153 

the hands of feoffees of the wife of the late James Swan ; 
from them to the daughters of the same lady and their 
husbands ; and from them, on the thirteenth of April, 1809, 
to Caleb Bingham, bookseller, Andrew Calhottn, mer- 
chant, and William Thurston, Esq., Trustees of Park 
Street Church, in consideration of the payment of twenty 
thousand dollars. The removal of the public buildings, and 
the erection of good houses on Park Street, had thus more 
than doubled the value of the neighboring estate in about 
fourteen years. 

The committee for purchasing the lot of land, and super- 
intending the erection of the meeting-house, was chosen 
at a business meeting held on the evening of the twenty- 
seventh day of February, 1809, the day on which the 
church was formed. It consisted of seven persons, four 
of whom were members of the church, and three were from 
among the subscribers, who were not communicants ; and 
of these, John E. Tyler, Esq. was selected to act as 
chairman. At the same time, Deacon Elisha Ticknor, 
formerly a schoolmaster, but at that time doing business 
as a grocer at the well-remembered sign of the Beehive, 
in that portion of Washington Street that was formerly 
known as Marlboro' Street, was chosen treasurer to the 
subscribers. In this capacity Deacon Ticknor served one 
year, and then, on the twenty-seventh of February, 1810, 
Ebenezer Parker, a noted shoe-dealer, was elected in 
his place, and continued in that service more than twenty 
years. 

More than forty thousand dollars having been subscribed, 



154 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

the building committee commenced operations, and on the 
first day of May, 1809, the corner-stone was laid at the 
southeast corner of the foundation, with appropriate re- 
ligious exercises, the prayer and address on the occasion 
being by Rev. Drs. Holmes and Morse. Beneath the 
stone was deposited a plate, upon which was engraved the 
following inscription : — 

" Jesus Christ, the chief corner-stone, in whom all the building 
fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord. 
This church formed February 27, and this foundation laid May 
1, 1809." 

Peter Banner, an ingenious architect, was selected to 
do the carpenter's work, and Benajah Brigham the mason 
work. The first intention was to have a plain building, two 
stories in hight, to be constructed of common bricks, with 
a tower and belfry; but the good sense of the building 
committee changed the material, and, at an extra expense 
of about one thousand one hundred and fifty dollars, face 
bricks were substituted for those of a more ordinary quality. 

The building as erected covers nearly the whole lot. Its 
large tower supports a capacious belfry. This last contains 
a bell, which, as the following document shows, was pre- 
sented to the church. 

" Boston, July 21, 1810. 
" To the Church of Christ worshiping in Park Street. 

" Sirs : We, the undersigned, present what we have subscribed 
for a Bell for the church on Park Street, to you for your accept- 
ance towards paying for said Bell. That you may grow in 



HISTORIC SKETCH, 155 

grace, increase in holiness, be cemented in love, and abound 
with the meekness and humility of Him whose Blood was spilt 
on Calvary's cross, are the ardent wishes of us, your friends." 

The document was signed by Benjamin Shurtleff, and 
twenty-two of the principal members of the congregation. 
Over the belfry are two octagonal rooms, and above these 
a base for the spire. Surmounting these stands the spire, 
fifty feet in hight, crowned with a ball and vane. The 
extreme hight of the vane from the street below it is, by 
actual measurement, two hundred and seventeen feet and 
nine inches. 

It was not originally intended that the meeting-house 
should have a steeple ; but the desire of the public was so 
great that a building occupying a position so conspicuous 
and imposing as this, and commanding such an extensive 
view in all directions, and itself so prominent a mark of 
observation from all parts of the town and surrounding 
country, should be thus ornamented, it was determined that 
one of extraordinary proportions, extending much farther 
into the skies than was elsewhere to be seen on the penin- 
sula, should be placed upon the meeting-house, as it were 
to serve as an index for all wayfaring pilgrims, pointing 
to that heavenly home to which the lessons and ministra- 
tions in the tabernacle below so distinctly directed. Indeed, 
there is a tradition now extant, and reasonably well authen- 
ticated, that one of the most wealthy and liberal of the 
subscribers made it a condition of his gift that the amount 
of his subscription should be thus expended. Be this as 



156 BEMI-CENTBNNIAL CELEBRATION. 

it may, few if any have ever regretted the determination, 
and none, it is hoped, would wish to remove from the 
building the interesting structure so long the delight and 
pride of Bostonians, and for many years the wonder of 
visiting strangers. May it remain for ages to come a relic 
of the past and a pleasant remembrance of our fathers. For 
nearly half a century this majestic spire has withstood the 
burning heats of summer's sultry sun, and the freezing 
cold of inclement winters. The storms have raged, and 
northwest winds have roared around it ; gales which have 
uprooted the massive elms of our magnificent Common, 
have passed it unheeded ) even the earthquake's shock, and 
the lightning's fiery blast, have shaken yet spared it ; and 
Time, old Time, which subdues all things, has laid a gentle 
hand upon its head, and its pride has not yet been bowed. 
What time and the elements have suffered to endure, let 
man preserve. 

From the time of laying the corner-stone, the building 
proceeded rapidly ; and on the tenth day of the succeeding 
January, in the year 1810, the meeting-house was dedicated 
with becoming services. The sermon — and one of the 
highest order it was — was preached by Kev. Edward 
Dorr Griffin, then stated preacher to the Society, and at 
the same time Bartlett professor of pulpit eloquence in the 
Andover Theological Seminary. Dr. Griffin selected for 
his text the following words of King Solomon, being the 
eighteenth verse of the sixth chapter of the Second Book 
of Chronicles : — 



HISTORIC SKETCH. 157 

" But will God in very deed dwell with men on earth ? 
Behold heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee ; 
how much less this house which I have built." 

The following are among the closing paragraphs of this 
remarkable discourse : — 

" In this house the gospel will be to some the savor of 
life unto life, and to others the savor of death unto death. 
Should this church stand a century and a half, and its seats 
be generally filled, how many thousands will hear the gospel 
within these walls ! Millions of times will all those thou- 
sands look back from eternity to this house, with inconceiv- 
able pleasure or pain. By all those thousands the effect of 
its erection and dedication will be felt, millions of ages after 
this world is no more. These measures, then, I consider 
as the antecedents of happiness and misery greater than 
the mind of man can now conceive. The time will come 
when not a tongue in the universe will make these measures 
the subject of a jest. I am prompted," said he, " not less 
by justice than by feeling, to commend, in terms the most 
respectful, the exertions which have been made by the 
proprietors of this house. That so small a number of men 
should complete so spacious and beautiful an edifice in the 
course of eight months, is a wonder which has no parallel 
in the history of American churches. May this structure 
long stand a monument of their liberality and zeal for the 
worship of God ; and may they, and their children, and 
their children's children, find within these walls the means 
and earnest of eternal life ! We have abundant reason to 



158 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

acknowledge the goodness of God in bringing this important 
enterprise to so happy an issue, without the sacrifice of any 
lives, or material injury to any person. I tender you my 
hearty congratulations on the occasion, and invite you, my 
dear brethren, to join in thanksgiving and praise to him 
who has graciously prospered our humble endeavors. On 
every wall and door let your faith read this inscription : 
' Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain 
that build it/ " 

No material changes took place in the meeting-house for 
many years, until about the year 1824, when, for the sake 
of improving the financial condition of the Society, thirty 
vaulted crypts, valued at about twelve thousand dollars, were 
built beneath the northern side of the house. Since that 
time, and quite recently, the building has been remodeled, 
its roof raised, a good basement story constructed, and the 
pews and pulpit renewed, and made to conform to the 
improvements of the times. The steeple also has under- 
gone a most thorough repair, and bids fair to stand many 
years, an ornament to the city, and the first endeared object 
to present itself to the eye and gladden the heart, not only 
of the home-bound mariner, but the weary traveler from 
any region or direction whatever. 



HISTORIC SKETCH. 



159 



MEMBERSHIP. 



Original members, with those professing 

at the organization, . . . . 26 

Added by letter 811 

Added by profession .... 1,115 



Total 1,952 

Of these, 675 were males, and 1,277 females. 



Dismissed to other churches . 


811 


Died 


255 


Excommunicated . 


37 


Connection dissolved 


2 


Total removals . 


. 1,105 



PRESENT NUMBER. 



Males 
Females 



Total 



283 
564 

847 



Of the children of the church, the number of those 

who have become ministers of the gospel, is 13 



160 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

Of the entire membership of the church, the num- 
ber of those who have exercised the Christian 
ministry, is . . . . . . .23 

Of those who have been dismissed to other 
churches, there have been elected to the office 
of deacons in those churches, so far as known, 33 



DEACONS. 

John E. Tyler, chosen December 8, 1809, died January 

26, 1821. 

Josiah Bumstead, chosen December 8, 1809, died Sep- 
tember, 1859. 

Jeremiah Evarts, chosen May 4, 1819, died May 10, 
1831. 

John C. Proctor, chosen May 4, 1819, resigned August 
24, 1827. 

Henry Hill, chosen March 2, 1825, resigned April 21, 
1837. 

Nathaniel Willis, chosen September 19, 1827, resigned 
September 3, 1847. 

Nathaniel Dana, chosen May 14, 1835, resigned Feb- 
ruary 5, 1847. 

Daniel Safford, chosen June 14, 1837, resigned May 

27, 1842. 

Edwin Lamson, chosen July 12, 1842. 
George Russell, chosen March 10, 1847, died March 
1857. 



HISTORIC SKETCH. 1 01 

Henry Hoyt, chosen April 28, 1847. 
Ezra Farnsworth, chosen December 14, 1853. 
Tyler Batcheler, chosen September 17, 1857. 
Jacob Fullarton, Jr., chosen October 13, 1857. 
Charles C. Litchfield, chosen October 13, 1857. 



COMMUNION FURNITURE. 

Large Table Cloth, presented by Andrew Calhoun, 1809. 
Small Table Cloth, presented by Asa Ward, 1809. 
Baptismal Fount, presented by Ebenezer Parker, 1809. 



First. Presented to the church by Aaron Hardy, 1809. 
Second. Presented to the church by Henry Homes, 1809. 
Third. Presented to the church by Thomas M'Clure 

and Zacharias Thayer, 1819. 
Fourth. Purchased by the church, 1822. 

DONORS OF GOBLETS AND SPOON. 

George J. Homer, Nathaniel Willis, 

John E. Tyler, Haskell & Hale, 

William Thurston, John C. Proctor, 

Josiah Bumstead, David Chamberlain and others, 

William Ladd, Maynard Ellison and others, 

David Baxter, Hannah Haskins, 
Mary Mason, 



162 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



BAPTISMS DURING FIFTY YEAES. 

Infants and young children . 591 

Adults 174 

Total 765 



THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 

Sabbath Schools, in the Orthodox churches in 
Boston, it is supposed, originated in a meeting of 
members of Park Street Church, in the year 1817. 
Rev. Dr. Griffin was present, and took a deep 
interest in the subject. 

A free conversation was held, in which objections 
were raised, viz : that it might be a desecration of 
the Sabbath ; that children ought to be instructed 
at home by their parents ; and that professing Chris- - 
tians ought to be at home, engaged in reading, medi- 
tation, and prayer, instead of going abroad to teach 
the children of other families, on the Sabbath. 

To this it was answered, that Sabbath-school teach- 
ing was a missionary work, designed to gather, from 
the streets and wharves, children who were neg- 
lected by their parents, and suffered to go abroad 






HISTORIC SKETCH. 163 

oh the Sabbath, when they were generally engaged 
in play or mischief. It was for this purpose that 
they were established in England, by Robert Raikes, 
and they had there been the means of doing great 
good. 

It was finally determined, at that meeting, that a 
school of that description should be commenced ; 
and William Thurston, Esq., (the first name at- 
tached to the covenant of Park Street Church,) who 
had no children of his own, was requested to act 
as superintendent of the school. This school was 
established in the Town Schoolhouse, on Mason 
Street. 

Schools similar to this were afterwards established 
in other sections of the town. The " Society for the 
Moral and Religious Instruction of the Poor," being 
organized about that time, took the general superin- 
tendence of all the schools, appointed the superin- 
tendents when vacancies occurred, visited and ex- 
amined the schools, by committees, quarterly, and 
contributed to their pecuniary wants. 

Some years after this, the " Boston Sabbath School 
Union " was formed, which took the care of the 
schools into its own hands ; but they were not con- 
nected with any particular church until some years 
after the Society's supervision commenced. 

In the fall of 1829, two members of the Park Street 



1 G4: SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

Church, — a lady and a gentleman, — after conversa- 
tion on the subject, determined to attempt the estab- 
lishment of a Sabbath school in Park Street Lower 
Vestry, to be gathered principally from the congre- 
gation. Notice was given from the pulpit of this 
intention ; parents were requested to send their chil- 
dren : and youth, under age, were invited to meet 
and form a Bible class. 

The first meeting of the school was held " Sun- 
day, December 13, 1829." There were present 
three male and three female teachers ; . ten male 
and eleven female scholars. Joseph Jenkins was 
superintendent, Horatio M. Willis was secretary, 
Nathaniel Willts took charge of the female Bible- 
class, A. Ellison, B. Bennet, Mrs. Eustis, Mrs. 
Beecher, and Miss Barker, were teachers of other 
classes. 

At the second meeting, December 20, two dollars 
were received from Mr. EL H. Barton, father of two 
female scholars, in aid of the formation of a library. 
On the next Sabbath, one dollar was received from 
a teacher, and twenty-five cents from a scholar, for 
the same object. December 20, the first address 
was made to the school by Rev. Louis Dwight. 

At the time that Park Street School was estab- 
lished, many teachers and scholars belonging to Park 
Street congregation were engaged in other schools, 



HISTORIC SKETCH. 165 

from which they were not disposed to withdraw. It 
was stated at the time, that about one hundred mem- 
bers of Park Street Church, of both sexes, were thus 
engaged. 

I. SUPERINTENDENTS OF THE SABBATH SCHOOL IN 
PARK STREET VESTRY. 

Joseph W. Jenkins, from December 13, 1829, to June 

1, 1834. 
William T. Eustis, from June, 1834, to October, 1837. 
Daniel Safford, from October, 1837, to June, 1839. 
William T. Eustis, from June, 1839, to October, 1845. 
Henry Hoyt, from October, 1845, to October, 1847. 
S. Ingersoll Lovett, from January, 1850, to January, 

1852. 
E. S. Chesbrough, from January, 1852, to January, 

1854. 
Samuel Gregory, m.d., from January, 1854, to January, 

1856. 
Thomas N. Nickerson, from January, 1856, to January, 

1859. 

II. MISSION school in mason street. 

Established by two young ladies of the church, in 1855. 
Erastus Smith has been superintendent from 1855 to the 
present time. The whole number of teachers and scholars 
is two hundred. 



166 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



III. MISSION SCHOOL IN REVERE STREET (COLORED). 

This school was first established in 1829. It was taken 
under the care of Park Street Church in 1859. since 
which time J. G-reen Jones has been superintendent. 
The whole number of teachers and scholars is one hun- 
dred and thirty-five. 



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